Icarus's Vanguard
by Eyefantasy
Summary: Four Gundam pilots find themselves thrown into the distant future of the Post-Disaster era Mars. The pilots soon discover that this era, once again, needs their revolutionary heroism and, most importantly, their Gundams. However, Earth's military police, Gjallarhorn, rules with an iron fist. Can these righteous pilots persevere or will Gjallarhorn forever silence their defiance?
1. Chapter 1: Dawn

**AN** : I'm back with a new story! This one has been sitting for awhile and I wasn't too sure if I was going to post this. Season two's ending left a bad impression in my mouth (I liked the ending but I felt nothing for the character deaths) and I got indecisive. Luckily that indecisiveness didn't last and I persevered little by little. I started this with just Trowa, then I added Duo, because, hey, I adore him, then it grew to Quatre, and finally Wufei had to be in there too! Heero Yuy may or may not show. I liked these four pilots because of their teamwork in the Eve's War, and I thought it would be great if they collaborated on another mission with stakes far greater than their own universe.

I enjoyed IBO's setting and loved the characters (but the setting could have been expanded more if they remained on Mars and included the Dorf colonies in season two). I love the characters' personal quirks and the subtle character development. I like the dysfunctional relationship between Mika and Orga, Orga's impulsiveness and dependency on Mika and vice versa, and Biscuit's character (he's my favorite). I like the use of gay and bisexual characters - which Gundam needs a lot more. What I didn't like was when a character was about to die, they get character development, which soon became very predictable and I rolled my eyes each time it happened. That didn't sit right with me. The Turbines needed more development, especially Azee! McGillis should have planned better. But the pros definitely outweighed the cons, and there's too many Seed/Wing stories and I wrote something new for a change. I'm okay with this chapter, but I hope those that do read it find more enjoyment in this. The title is subject to change. R&R.

 **Additional notes** : Orga is a girl. It's a shocker, I know, but I wondered what it would be like for a girl to grow up in CGS in the company of boys and men and progress through sexism, possibly pedophilia, abuse and misogyny, friendship and romance. And also, there's too many boys! It's an extremely harsh world for children, boys and girls, and I wanted to see what happens. If you can't get past this, then oh well. I can't help you there. The Wing Gundams are the Katoki versions. I'm also using Post-Disaster Universe rules for weaponry - no beams if I can help it. There will be new antagonists and more expansion on Mars and the colonies. There will be relationships, but I'm not sure on who just yet.

 **Additional notes 1a** : I love writing Duo! He's just a fun character to write and his expressions and dialogue are always interesting!

 **Plot** : A rogue mission spirals out of control for Trowa, Quatre, Duo, and Wufei, sending the pilots and their Gundams to a new universe, where they encounter children who are not so unlike them and their past. Forming new relationships and setting new goals, these four pilots embark on a new adventure that will continually test their fortitude to survive in the Post-Disaster future. However, a new foe called Gjallarhorn rules with an iron fist and oppresses with an even greater reach than what OZ had ever done. The Gundam pilots and their new allies will have to battle them and come to some harsh conclusions on the state of the world and how, from their experience from their own timeline, to reform the world... if they can survive that is.

Chapter 1: Dawn

The circus was alive tonight! The white voluminous tent, festooned by gold and purple ribbon that adorned its frame in a celebratory circle, shimmering under the floodlights like liquid color bedazzled by the sun, and the roaming and crisscrossing searchlights, created an eclectic atmosphere of celebration, an allure of unbridled enthusiasm sparked by an evening fervor for the weekend. The searchlights dazzled the nighttime sky and acted as a beacon to draw throngs of boisterous weekenders, where bustling crowds were still, after a nearly two hour performance, crowding the entrance to the tent. The crowd soon grumbled and moaned their dismay when security closed off the entrance with a red rope barrier. The tent had exceeded full capacity, and the crowd soon dispersed within the city. Inside, the sitting attendees eagerly awaited the next performance that would send their imagination abound in restless excitement.

Backstage, sixteen-year-old Trowa Barton sat in ponderous silence on an equipment box, waiting patiently for his turn in the spotlight. His gloved hands were folded in his lap, fingers intertwined. He sat like a statue and nothing could move him besides the summoning of his role. Trowa had a face considered handsome, a white visage with ancestral ties to the European continent. His childish features were melting away into the man he would become in the future; and though he looked young, there was something off about the boy. Those that looked upon him, that really took the time to observe him, did not see him as a child, for the shelter of innocence, the naivety of the world from those of his age, could not be found. He had lost his innocence when he realized his value lay only in the fires of war - to be a perfect weapon for any organization, with fire in their hands and war in their metal and cruel hearts, he undertook and pledged his allegiance to.

Trowa was a boy of quiet disposition, whose dark forest green eyes bore a heavy if not critical gaze some would consider cold. His eyes manifested as a barrier that separated him from the world around him, the sea of leaves that hid the forest floor, it kept many at bay. To be caught in his gaze was for him to decode a person's true intentions. Nothing escaped from his eyes; everything was unraveled, analyzed and deconstructed. He could not afford anything – absolutely anything – to get past him. To get by him insured his own demise.

Trowa's emotions were dissembled behind a stoic mask he often portrayed publicly, offset by his colorful and flamboyant costume of a smiling clown. He wore a white mask that covered the right side of his face, with a purple star painted over the eye that dipped into the mask's smiling red lips, which seemed to smile and hint as if it knew an open secret: There were two sides to Trowa Barton, and the mask held those two sides at bay: the mysterious, zealous, no-named performer and the gentle and reserved boy.

Trowa's brown, unruly, cascading bangs fell onto his right side, stopping at his chin, hiding most of the mask; the back of his head remained short and neat, a remembrance, he kept, from his days on Earth in his childhood. He wore gold suspenders over his bare muscular chest that attached itself to ostentatious, green, balloon pants. The balloon pants for all its bagginess was quite light, constructed from the same cotton fabric of his previous pants when he had joined the traveling circus, a courtesy of Catherine Bloom, and he found they did not hinder or strain any movement. His new look gave him more freedom to define himself as a performer. It was a new, minimized look for the young clown, a less flamboyant and caricatured costume. Catherine had agreed. She had said his new look would attract many admirers to their shows. Observing the audience and their coos and screams when he entered the tent he could say she wasn't wrong in her assessment. He, like always, ignored their adulation, their adoring screams that rang in the air when he appeared, remaining sedulous to his art, a dedication born from a marriage of meticulousness and his love for the arts and humanities he had studied as a child.

Presently, Trowa's visible green eye remained fixed on the tent walls, transfixed not on the wall, but something past it, as he ignored the flashing lights and the fire-tempo of the carnival music blasting from the stadium speakers and vibrating his seat. Trowa's imminent performance was pushed to the back of his mind. It wasn't like it mattered, as he had already memorized the routine. He could perform the routine with his eyes closed if needed. It was trivial in comparison to the looming and existential threat facing him.

His mind dwelt on the future – a potentially dangerous future. Trowa thoughts' were engaged on a coming rendezvous with a personal friend to deal with imminent threats facing the Colonies and the Earth. He hadn't seen this friend in months, and he knew when he came, his position in the world would change dramatically.

The matter weighed on his conscious. Grave matters that unsettled the very foundations of his being, his present-day self. The more time elapsed, the more his persona unraveled. It was an identity crisis that had returned to haunt him, and he was sure, one day, to torture and murder him. The gravity of his situation was enormous, and it involved, from his inception as a Gundam pilot, the knowledge of Operation Meteor.

His friend had messaged Trowa a classified report from the Earth Sphere Unified Nation's Preventers, an intelligence agency formed to "prevent" any escalation of conflict, through the Gundam Circuit while he was touring in the sector with the circus troupe. Trowa had been scouring the Gundam Circuit that day, looking for any information on the state of the world, and who, in this age of peace and cooperation, would disrupt the new world order. Ever since Ralph Kurt's visit earlier in the year, he had been feeling uneasy, like the coming cold of night creeping on the skin, the threat couldn't be seen as of yet but it was felt intensely, hostilely.

The people of his past were resurfacing from the shadows. And the light, a light that continued to be tested, halting the expansion of the aggressive shadows, protecting peace, was dimming, fading a slow death to evanescence. Soon the shadows would usurp the light. It was only a matter of time. Time, which could not be prolonged, always came to ahead, holding no qualms for the state of the world or one's self. Time was a selfish lover, and it cared not for Trowa's relationships – he would have to extricate himself from them, for peace was a random time bomb in his life: no one knew when it would be set off or the destruction it would cause in his obliviousness. Trowa noticed the all-too-familiar patterns of the world receding from its current era - political lines were drawn, discontent of soldiers looking for a new battlefield, the return of weapons to establish power – the hanging threats that could ferment into something insidious. Trowa couldn't afford to dally any longer.

Space was in the midst of a great change.

During this change, the circus had come to space again, to colony X-30098, in the L-3 colony cluster. The manager had said, since the war's end, he wanted to spread some cheer to the Colonies. Trowa had silently agreed, and, relieved, he was happy returning home to his adopted region. Space had never been so open and warm. The Colonies were once again flowering with joy and excitement, where the war had left them bereft and afraid as hope, back then, was a dream, frozen by the hands of death, oppression, rebellion, war and revolution. Peace was an afterthought last year. Now, people, the Colonies' denizens, took to this new freedom, this newborn peace, like bees to pollen. This attraction was intoxicating and so very welcoming. The Colonies were free.

From this sense of freedom came the thrill of entertainment. Tonight, the circus troupe had attracted a large turnout, more so than last year. The people were delighted by their appearance, tickets sold out in hours, and crowds squished together, tightly packed, just to see the show. Trowa could hear the crowd gasp and cheer, their raucous applause reverberating like echoes in a cave. He knew the manager, Arthur Vitt, was nearly closing the show for the night; all that was left was his last performance on the tightrope, a job that came naturally to him: Trowa had always walked a thin line between life and death – for death was a constant companion, because his past, his childhood, was born – and _bred_ – for the battlefield. Trowa had found it amusing, for the tightrope became, in a way, a lifeline of what he was, and an internal separation between his life of war and peace – which both could be housed together in an internal struggle for supremacy. Peace was winning, but barely.

"We got a performance for you tonight!" the manager announced, breaking Trowa out of his reverie.

Trowa stood and made his way to the opening flap. He stood at the entrance readying his mind and his body for the performance. The tent was pitch-black except a lone stray light illuminating the manager in the middle of the floor. The crowd was nothing but amorphous silhouettes moving back and forth, their cellphones alight in the dark, like an undulating sea reflecting stars. The crowd quieted but unintelligible whispers steadily raised the volume until it was, once again, uncontrollable. The anticipation was thick and heavy and seemed to make the crowd more riled, more vocal as if a contagious pathogen had spread, seizing the audience one by one, and turning their quiet anticipation into sedentary pandemonium; whistles and hoots and the drumming of stomps resounded loudly, thunderously, in restless anticipation, for the closing performance was at hand.

"Please give another round of applause for Trowa Barton, our rising star performer!"

That was his cue. The drum roll began its nightly, violent ritual. Trowa somersaulted and flipped to the center of the stage, the drums growing louder and louder, driving harder and faster, like booming marching footsteps walking in unison, after each acrobatic technique. He stopped and landed after a front double tuck facing the audience, and the drums, reaching its crescendo, crashed into silence. The spotlight found him, and he bowed graciously to his audience, welcoming them to the finale. The crowd roared before him, hooting and cheering so loud that his eardrums trembled. He could feel their enthusiasm, the vibrations booming in the air, raising his fine hair on his skin like an electrical current. It was music to his ears.

The tent brightened in light, and Trowa, using his extraordinarily powerful legs, jumped, and freely flipped in the air. He felt as light as a feather, twirling and spinning, as if the wind had swept up the feather in a furious gust. Trowa landed with the grace of a ballet dancer, on a taut tightrope high above the ground, the rope bouncing lightly under his feet. The audience, sitting in bleachers surrounding the stage, looked like blurs, but their cheers of elation met him in the air, ringing around him, filling the whole tent in sound.

Tonight was something different. Tonight, Trowa had asked for something new, a personal finale of sorts. It would be his last performance for a while. He wanted the crowd to remember this feeling, this sense of joy that emanated from their performances. Trowa wanted them spellbound, captivated by an otherworldly performance. He sought to fill their minds with awe, leaving them insatiable.

He had suggested the use of pyrotechnics on the safety net. Catherine had marveled at the idea, he remembered her gray eyes shined brightly at the challenge, the captivation of such a performance could only bring greater acclaim to their troupe. The manager wasn't sure, as he kept a careful eye on any suggestion Trowa made, learning from past experiences the boy's performances were extremely dangerous, as if Trowa liked teetering on the edges of life and death. Trowa could not blame him; he had put them in harm's way when he used Heavyarms to destroy a local Organization of the Zodiac (OZ) base during a performance. He doubted Arthur would ever forget neither the incident nor the cost of Trowa's decision.

However, Trowa and Catherine convinced the manager to his side. Trowa knew how to provoke a reaction from the crowd, and the manager couldn't ignore Catherine. Catherine was the assistant-manager, so her words held indubitable weight, and she was bit more lenient of Trowa's transgressions.

"Let's light things up!" the manager cried. He turned to Catherine, motioning an arm to her, his face full of explosive excitement though his eyes betrayed a deep-seated fear. "Ms. Catherine Bloom, please, if you will do us the honor and set the net ablaze!"

Below him, Catherine walked to the net, torch in hand. She held the flame under the net and it licked the air greedily until it caught the taste of the safety net and engulfed it quickly. The audience gasped in fright, fearing his life was in danger. The fire rose and rose, flickering and spitting, dancing dangerously below him. It wanted to devour him, writhing hungrily, angrily. The flames, amid their bellicose dance, felt familiar, as if they were hissing to him in a language of upheaval and violence that he knew, regrettably, all-too-well.

The battlefield flashed in Trowa's mind.

All too soon Trowa's cacophonous past drowned out the audience as he stared at the fire, entranced by its writhing violence. He froze. He soon felt the sensation of tightness, like being squeezed through a tube. The audience's voices became indistinct and distant echoes at the cusp of his mind until he was, quite vividly, thrown into his war-ravaged past.

Vivid sequences of his battles exploded in his mind anachronistically. Trowa saw the titanic fires raging over demolished bases, the mortal cries of dying men and women, the thunderous explosions of mobile suits that glittered chillingly all around him, shredded and burned metal strewn over fortifications in heaps like ruins of an old age, the smell of rotting and smoldering corpses blackened and unrecognizable; the fusillade of Heavyarms's Gatling guns roaring at enemies, their empty clips ringing, ringing, ringing in melodious dissonance, each bullet piercing with deadly precision, perforating his enemies' metal bodies as if they were paper; the billowing smoke from the wreckage that blotted and dyed the sky an ominous and ugly black, that seemed to consume the very world, descending the world into turbulent chaos; desperation and redundancy of a freedom fighter without a cause. It all crashed within him violently.

"What will our noble clown do?" echoed the manager from his podium, his tone masked in fright, which the crowd ate up, their whispers transforming into clamoring incoherence. The manager looked between him and the crowd, puzzled and worried, for Trowa, unbeknownst to the audience, hesitated. Catherine had her hand over her mouth; her grey eyes were wide and she looked on in stunned silence.

The act had become real.

The past shattered into pieces around Trowa, the shards reflecting his life-defining moments ebbed into the darkness that was clearing around him. The manager's voice had awakened Trowa from his trauma-induced dream. Trowa blinked, remembering where he was, high atop the swaying rope, in the middle of a performance. Panic came like a flood, pouring into every fiber of his being. He could feel his heart racing, his fingers fidgeting as if he was back in Heavyarms's cockpit, seeking the trigger of his joystick, the burning need to pull and eradicate all enemies with mechanical efficiency. Trowa forced himself to remain calm, to stop his erratic heartbeats that now came to his ears, blocking all but the sound of his heart's maddening plea to be heard and assuaged. He breathed a long sigh, fighting to compose himself, fighting not to betray himself to thousands of people.

When his body stilled, and he could feel the tension of his muscles alleviate, Trowa re-centered his gaze to the end of the tightrope. _That was strange_ , he thought, perplexed by the sudden recalling of his terrifying memories. _Does my past still torment me, like a child that never surmounts their phobia, triggered by the briefest of instances_? _Do the fires of war and steel still call to me, my bloody baptism as a soldier?_

Trowa had never been so consumed by his past during a performance. It frightened and unnerved him. He had thought he had reconciled with his past by staying with the circus troupe and Catherine. Catherine gave him hope. She gave him a home to return to. That should have settled his turbulent mind… or so Trowa thought. He narrowed his green eye and replaced his building worry with focus. He would cross that bridge at a later time. Right now, the performance must go on.

Trowa treaded across the rope, ignoring the fire roaring below him and the smattering noise of the audience. The crowd, now, calming, returned to his performance, many standing up to see if the boy would fall. He did not. He never did. He stopped near-halfway to the middle and turned his back. He performed two back handsprings slowly, his legs taut, stretching, one after another until he reached the middle. He paused as the amazed crowd cheered. He front flipped, feeling his body rotate, his head dipping, and grabbed the rope in a one-handed handstand, his free hand outstretched to the crowd as if to invite them to join his suicidal performance. Of course, none would willingly indulge or take such an invitation. To join Trowa would mean bearing the heaviness of the world and the Colonies, and facing a harsher reality where tragedy made home and the terror of death, as omnipresent as an imperceptible light breeze kissing one's skin, shadowed one's every move. To take his hand was to, at bottom, willingly acquiesce one's humanity, and to erase and replace it, as a blank slate, into a weapon.

Finishing his last acrobatic trick, he jumped down into the center. The fire raged closer. Trowa felt the intense heat, its hot breath on his face, briefly, smothering, and landed next to the burning contraption. It was quickly extinguished, leaving fingers of smoke rising in the air like smoldering battlefields. He paused, waiting, waiting under the heavy and stunned silence of the crowd; their awe-open mouths and bated breaths filled the silence of the applause. A lonely drop of sweat trickled down his forehead, winding its way along the landscape of his face. He bowed to his audience, and they drowned him in applause, muting the manager's ecstatic voice.

A hand squeezed his right shoulder. His visible green eye followed the hand to Catherine's beautiful face, her short, brown, curly hair glowing in the light. She looked radiant, surrounded by light as if dressed in its brilliance, compounded with the crowd's adulation. She smiled beautifully, but her smile did not reach her large eyes. Catherine's eyes, gray circular mirrors that reflected Trowa, told him everything about his performance. Trowa's face remained blank, and he moved his eyes away from her, closing them in shame.

* * *

Shortly thereafter, Trowa was packing his duffle bag. He had on a blue long-sleeved turtleneck, fitting his muscular form, jeans and blue boots. He was in his room, in the colony hotel Stardust. The room was modest: a single queen-sized bed rested against a bland beige wall, two armchairs sat by the open window, where the pulled back purple curtains overlooked an immense view of the bustling city, a closet and a bathroom. The television hanging from the wall was on, the anchor's voice competing against the indistinguishable noise of the outside world. From what Trowa could hear from the television, the anchor reported that a high and abnormal concentration of solar flares would be hitting Mars in a few weeks, due to the active (and explosive) sunspots caused by an irregular internal reaction. The anchor said it would be the strongest yet since recorded history.

The circus troupe was staying at the hotel for the remainder of the week before they travelled to the next colony. The demand was enormous and they couldn't pass on an opportunity like this. Trowa, on the other hand, was leaving. The report he had received from the Gundam Circuit came flooding into his head. His worry returned, saturating his current thoughts.

The Preventer report stated that the Barton Foundation was proliferating weapons in the orbit of Mars on a resource satellite and at many Lagrange points hidden in the colony clusters. Each was an independent site under the guise of the Foundation's business and industries – proliferation of arms, capital, labor and soldiers. The report was stirring and it made Trowa uneasy about at how quickly the Foundation was moving. He knew the peace obtained by the Gundam pilots during the war, as fragile as it was, could unravel and collapse, especially with Dekim Barton as the catalyst.

Dekim was making his move, and Trowa knew how important it was to stop him. Dekim Barton, the creator of Operation Meteor, would be after his head. He would permanently silence Trowa through public execution, as a reminder – and a warning – for dissenters, for murderers and coconspirators against him, his reign, and his family. Absolute fealty to the Barton Foundation was demanded; deference, as always, to Dekim's will, was priority. Dekim inspired loyalty, and it was no small feat he had so many revolutionaries pledging themselves to him and his cause. He had the power and charisma to achieve his goals.

Trowa, in an act to counter Operation Meteor's true objective, had taken the name of his son and acted out missions as the replacement for the original Trowa Barton. However, he was caught before the operation at Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia; the flow of arms to Heavyarms had ceased at the realization he was a fake. Fortunately, he had no more trouble with the Barton Foundation until Ralph Kurt found him on Earth, demanding Heavyarms for the remnants of the White Fang and a certain man lurking behind the curtain, pulling the strings. Trowa was positive Dekim was that man, the enigmatic puppet master moving in the shadows, his hands were pushing and pulling anyone he could manipulate.

Dekim was a man born from the shadows, and was simply biding his time before his grand entrance into the light, where he would bring a reckoning of catastrophe and authoritarianism. Trowa knew this with certainty. Indeed Dekim's son often spoke of his father's grand ambitions for conquest of space and Earth, and Trowa couldn't find fault that the son was as egotistical and power-hungry as the father. The original Barton wanted Earth to genuflect to the ideals and wishes of the Barton family. Nothing could satiate that desire; revenge for the assassinated and venerated politician Heero Yuy or peace for the Colonies could not make an impact.

And it seemed Dekim was still defiant, even after peace had come to the Colonies. Trowa needed to act quickly before Dekim amassed more weapons. He had a feeling Dekim wouldn't stop until he conquered space and Earth. Revenge drove the old man's violent lusts and it would be revenge that would endanger him and the people close to his heart.

Dekim was a merciless man and betrayal wasn't so easily forgiven; his death would be immediate and Heavyarms would be his possession once again, to subjugate the Earth as it was intended to. Mercy was only in Dekim's vocabulary if one would be a pawn in his grand scheme. Trowa would take any method to undermine and subvert Dekim, even if it meant he had to play the pawn. He would make sure, when the chance presented itself, to assassinate Dekim. He would continue to kill again to shelter others from the throes of violence and bloodshed.

Trowa breathed a sighed, turning his thoughts on assassination aside, and restarted packing when he heard a soft rapping on his door. Quickly, he turned off the television and opened the door. He was greeted by Catherine's smiling face. However, her expression was downcast. Her smile was forced, and sadness wafted off of her like a depressing and slow mist, a sadness he could feel scream at his being.

"Catherine," acknowledged Trowa softly.

"Do you mind if we talk for a bit," she said, nervously wringing her hands. She bit her lip, a nervous or anxious reaction he had noticed when trouble dwelled in those gray irises.

Trowa nodded, and she walked in and sat on the red covers of the bed. Trowa closed the door and leaned against it, watching her through his heavy lashes. Catherine was out of her circus costume, wearing a yellow tank top that revealed her pale white skin and her ample cleavage and was tucked into a pair of hip-hugging jeans. She was svelte with healthy definition in her arms - from years as a knife-thrower and other acrobatic positions - and tall. She smiled wanly at him, a smile that made his heart clench, as her hands gripped the covers in a restless cause to handle her nervousness.

Her nervousness won.

Catherine was afraid to speak. Her eyes said it the most: they were large and red and unshed tears, that were going brighter by the minute, threatened to spill over a track of stained skin; and Trowa, then, knew, she had been crying just before she came in.

Trowa was the first to speak. "I'll return. You don't need to worry, Catherine."

"Your foresight is always amazing, Trowa. It's kind of scary."

Catherine sighed, looking down at her lap. Her eyes seemed to be staring at nothing and everything. Sad gray eyes, finally, found Trowa's green. "It feels like I've just had you back with me, and now you're going away again. Off to fight. You always seem to be slipping through my fingers, each time going further and further away. You know, you're like the stars sometimes, like, you're out of my reach even though I know you're there. Even in front me.

"One day, I'm afraid, I… I'm going to realize that you'll be gone for good – and there won't be anything I can do to stop you!" Her voice had taken a somber tone, slightly cracking at the end. Pain, which tormented her in waves, echoed in her words. Trowa could feel her ache at his decisions to involve himself in battle. It was pain he was familiar with from Catherine; it was a raw pain he knew he could never truly assuage.

Trowa remained silent, choosing to listen and watch. He knew his sudden departures hurt Catherine. She may not have expressed it often, but he could see it in her eyes, feel it in his very bones. But he had to go! His past was a nonnegotiable matter, a bloody past that refused to remain buried, and it would be soon that they would target the people he held most dear - Catherine and the circus troupe, his adopted family – as leverage for Heavyarms. He wouldn't let harm come to them, he would combat and obliterate them if they so much as touched them. He would sacrifice his life to do so. They deserved peace far more than anyone else, more than himself, a destroyer who takes life to become alive in the wreckage of his foes and near-death experiences.

Catherine knew what Trowa was going to do. She knew he was going to fight and, though she understood, she completely _hated_ it. She absolutely _loathed_ the idea of fighting and war. She had always _hated_ war. It was a constant torment, and it rose in her every time she looked at him when his mind drifted far away, subconsciously latching onto memories he wanted to forget but couldn't, to disturbing memories that lingered quietly in the background of his thoughts. She was always watching him, and Trowa knew. Sometimes he tried to reassure her; oftentimes he would remain silent. She offered to listen to Trowa if his thoughts strayed to memories soaked in war but he could never tell her; those memories, those regrets, those alone were for him to bear and endure until he became nothing. He could not sully her already fragile heart with his deeds of destruction. Most times recalling his past was unbearably ineffable to put into words, to speak, only for his words to be reduced to a crying and deafening, an abject and aggrieved silence. It was best to say nothing and move forward.

Catherine had told Trowa after he tried to commit suicide by nearly self-destructing his Gundam (he had received a tearful admonishment), when she was very young, of how her parents and her baby brother, Triton, were killed fleeing a UESA air raid. There was no sudden alarm or evacuation drill, the UESA had swept in because of reports of civilians harboring wounded mercenaries, bombing all indiscriminately. She was left an orphan, haunted by the staccatos and the crescendos of gunfire, the earth turning to fire and smoke, quaking like a reckoning, which left an indelible mark on her psyche. She just wanted peace for herself and her circus family – and Trowa, now, was a part of her family, the surrogate brother that she never had growing up. She gave him a home, a place he could return, a place where he didn't have to be heartless, where he didn't have to fight to survive, and she accepted him without question. She gave Trowa a new chapter to life, but that chapter was slowly coming to an end all-too-quickly, the pages burning away, leaving embers that could blaze again and consume his life's story.

"It's something I must do," Trowa found himself saying. Catherine had to understand from his position he couldn't afford to leave them in danger, like when OZ captured them during the prelude to the Eve's War. He had nearly lost them to a madman's war to end all wars and the insanity of OZ's Space Force.

"I know." Catherine looked up to him. Her gray eyes were bright. "I just… I just wish that you didn't. It's not going to bring you peace. I can see it, Trowa, especially after today's performance! Seeing you hesitate on the tightrope! Trowa" – Trowa's eyes narrowed, and his gaze bore, unflinchingly, into Catherine – "you _never_ hesitate!

"I was afraid you'd fall. Your eyes back then look so haunted, so engrossed, like you were dreaming. It reminded me of when you lost your memories. You looked like a lost and scared child when I found you. Do you even know how long you were up there?!"

Receiving Trowa's silence as an answer, Catherine attacked, her eyes burning into him. "Three minutes! You were up there, motionless, for three damn minutes!"

To Trowa, being stuck inside his head, watching his memories, felt like forever. Time did not exist in his nightmare. Three minutes felt short in comparison to what he'd been through. But he knew on the battlefield, those three minutes of inactivity was death. He internally frowned. The battlefield, as it seemed, would not let Trowa forget.

"Do you not know how frightened I was for you, Trowa? Even the manager was scared! We thought we might have to stop the show!

"Don't you see," Catherine continued, her voice becoming stronger and passionate, "To do this will destroy you! Trowa, you can't -!"

"It was a moment of hesitation, Catherine," Trowa interrupted, his voice leaving no room for argument, "nothing more. I was lax. It _won't_ happen again."

Catherine opened her mouth as if to say more, but Trowa's leveled gaze bore through her, silencing her voice. She looked down; her lips twisted into a long frown, trembling, then she bit her lip to calm herself. Catherine knew swaying Trowa's mind or his position was like moving a mountain. She had to rely that he knew what he was getting himself into, because Trowa, as always, shouldered the heavy burdens of the Colonies and Earth. He chose to bear this terrible burden so the colony citizens' wouldn't have to, and Trowa knew his heavy burden pained her so.

"However," – Trowa's eyes softened, and he smiled - "it will relieve me to know that you're safe," said Trowa, his voice softer as if to melt her fear away, "big sis." He walked to her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

"You big lug, you called me big sis." Catherine's eyes found his and she smiled brightly. "I could just hug you for that." And she did. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she pressed into his hard frame in a warm embrace. The fragrance of her perfume and shampoo, an enticing, flowery scent of convallaria, flowed into his nose. The fragrance was, strangely, like her soothing hugs.

"Promise me you'll come back, Trowa," she said, her voice muffled by his neck. He could feel her moist, shuddering breaths, her body trembling against him, and a wetness, which he was certain, were her tears drenching his collar.

"Catherine, I…" Trowa tried to respond but the words were trapped by his misgivings. His stomach tightened like tangled coils trying to unwind. All missions held a strong probability of death; that was an inevitable truth, and accepting them was the fact of his life. Tomorrow was not promised. To be a Gundam pilot meant facing death (whether by one's own hand or another's) and embracing it as a last option when all else fails. Death was an eternal companion; it never slept, just merely waited for the opportune moment to take one into darkness.

"Promise me!" she implored vehemently, tightening her arms around his neck. Trowa could feel her arms trembling; so overcome of her sorrow, she gripped tighter as if to permanently entrap him in this room, to still space and time.

Trowa was silent for a moment, feeling the turmoil of his decision. The coils in his stomach loosened. He relented, closing his green eyes and holding her a bit tighter, as if to persuade himself what he was about to say was the truth. "Okay. I promise."

"Good." She eased her grip and held his shoulders, clenching his shirt, a watery smile on her face. "Because if you didn't, I promise you I'll hunt you down whether in heaven or hell, and I'll give you a piece of my mind! You're a brother to me, Trowa. I can't—won't lose you, too. Not like my friends. Not like my parents and brother. If you were gone I-I don't know what I'd do. It's too excruciating to think about it."

She sighed, lowering her hands down the length of his arms to his hands, holding them. "However," she said, looking up, finally noticing him, his steps into adulthood, "you're grown up – you're making your own decisions. You have the power to define your life. Whatever choices you make, make sure your heart is in it, okay? I don't want you… I don't want you… you know…" her voice suddenly breaking.

Trowa nodded, touched by Catherine's candor and heart. Like a reservoir, Catherine's warmth filled him, easing any anxiety niggling at the corners of his mind. The growing fondness he had for her was overwhelming, and, strangely enough, exhilarating. It was a nice and soothing feeling that enveloped him in warmth and a pleasant peace. It was a feeling that made him want to protect her.

For a long moment they stared at each other, two people wishing time would spare them its unending ticking of life and leave them together to live as a family once more. Trowa seared her into mind: her tearful gray eyes, her curly brown hair, her full smile and red, tearstained cheeks. He wanted to remember her like this, to remember a person special to him that he had grown fond of. Her eyes again brimmed and overflowed with tears, and he gently brushed them away, as if to sweep all her worries away with a simple motion. He caressed her shoulders, while comforting her with a warm and gentle smile only reserved for her. She returned his smile with a watery one of her own.

Their moment came as swiftly as it ended when a loud rap sounded from the door. It was impatient, like the beckoned call of fate or destiny, telling him their brief time had ended, and the future, a ceaseless imminence, always looking over one's shoulder, had come. Pound, pound, pound! The knocks demanded to be answered, and Trowa reluctantly knew he could not refuse them. He could not run away from fate.

"My ride is here," Trowa said, reluctantly leaving Catherine, his smile dissolving into his habitual stoicism. He opened the door, and a young man, slightly shorter than he, was at the entrance. The youth's head was down and a black cap covered his face. Unrestrained and unruly brown bangs sprung from beneath his cap like untamed weeds, hovering over his face in disarray. He wore a red zippered-turtleneck under a black leather jacket with its sleeves rolled up, showing his bare arms, and black pants accompanied with brown boots.

He raised his head up, revealing tinted black sunglasses and a cheeky grin set on his boyishly white features.

"Knock, knock, knock! The Shinigami, Duo Maxwell, has arrived! No extra fees will be needed for this house call, unless you're payin' for the cab? So, are we ready buddy? Another dance with death is waiting, and she's an impatient partner." The young man peeked inside the room, spotting a disheartened Catherine. "Hey, I see ya got someone in there. I'll give ya a few."

"No," responded Trowa, "I'm ready."

"Ya sure?" the teen asked hesitantly, cocking his head to the side, his sunglasses dipping, showing his concerned cobalt blue eyes. His eyes switched from Trowa to Catherine briefly, understanding shining in them when he returned his eyes back on Trowa. Trowa nodded and went to gather his duffle bag. Catherine had the bag in her hand and gave it to him. She also gave in him another big hug.

"Be safe, Trowa," she breathed, and then she looked over his shoulder to the boy in the doorway, glaring. Duo raised a curious eyebrow in response. He seemed unsure as to why Catherine had singled him out in this farewell moment. But Trowa knew. Catherine's protective instincts kicked in, and Duo was in line of her caring ire.

"You make sure Trowa doesn't do anything reckless. I already had one guy poisoning his mind, I don't need another!"

"What?" Duo questioned, turning to Trowa, a quizzical smile on his face. "Is there somethin' I'm missing here? I'm not one to brainwash another, so who was the last chump you had with you?"

Trowa gave a small smile. He could not forget the lashing Catherine had given that day. "She's referring to Heero, Duo."

As if a light bulb went off in his head, Duo chuckled, shaking his head, his braided hip-length hair swaying at his waist. The thought of Heero humored the boy as his chuckle erupted into full-blown laughter. "Don't _I_ know it? I have a hard time figuring that guy out, too. Sometimes I don't think _he_ uses his head too much, either. Those quiet ones are the ones ya have to look out for the most! You'll never know what half-baked plans come to mind when they're in the heat of the moment. Or flashy surprises for that matter, too. And they're always overdoing it in the grandest, flashiest ways possible. Unbelievable! Always starting or leaving the party with an emphatic bang. I swear - to make up for their silent personalities, their actions have to be that much louder. Gonna get us all killed one day."

"Just make sure Trowa uses his," she instructed, walking Trowa to the door. Catherine reached as if to restrain Trowa, to pull him back to her, her hand lingering over his shoulder, but the moment passed and it fell quietly, and reluctantly, to her side.

"You can count on it," Duo replied, moving through the hallway. "We'll catch ya later, Cathy." He threw a wave and flashed a grin.

Trowa moved to follow him. "You be safe, Trowa," Catherine called. Trowa turned his head back and nodded, then continued after Duo.

The two left Catherine at the doorway, her eyes shining, and tears falling softly down her cheeks.

* * *

The two made their way down to the hotel lobby and outside, where they were met by the city's iridescent lights. They sparkled colorfully, an array of festivity, acting as the conduit to the colony's night life, the metal jungle's eyes in this urban setting. Skyscrapers rose from darkness and congregated in dominance at city corners, their tall silhouettes outlined by the night lights and their own incandescent glow - their myriad of window panes alight in fire, shined like lighthouses, like the guiding stars, calling them to haven – trying to outdo the other for light supremacy, in space where the stars burned more fiercely. Cars and buses ran down the streets, and the people of the colony ambled in the streets, at parks, at corners, in cafes, as the nighttime rhythm energized the city. Making their way out of the lobby and into the night, the duo held a cab in front of the hotel and it took them to the spaceport.

They left the cab and made their way inside. A left and right and left and another left, showing security their identification, they reached their private shuttle that was berthed outside the colony. Leading to the ship were stairs rising to an elevated gangway. They made their way up and through the gangway, stopping at the entrance.

"I'll start the preparatory work, buddy! Your Gundam's inside the cargo bay ready for ya. Its ammo is replenished and Howard added an extra weapon, somethin' I think you'll enjoy. The old coot must've been bored stiff on the moon," Duo said with a laugh. "Talk about crazy hobbies. But I guess that beats doing nothing. I know he rather be lulled by the ocean waves than the barren craters of the moon. Can't really call that a vacation paradise, ya know? Nothin' to do with himself," Duo paused, and his eyes shined at a new thought. He flashed a naughty smirk and he leaned in conspiratorially. "Well, I could be wrong about that.

"Check it out!" he encouraged, shooing Trowa away, chuckling. "Ya might even get a few surprises."

"Appreciate it, Duo."

They both entered the shuttle; Duo headed towards the flight deck and Trowa made his way to the cargo bay. The swish of the sliding door revealed, under dim yellow light, what he was looking for. In the cavernous bay, Trowa found his Gundam inside. His Gundam, XXXG-01H2 Gundam Heavyarms Kai, sat in the back against the wall, like a dozing metal giant. He jumped into zero gravity, floating over to his suit to get a greater inspection of its new updates.

"We meet again, Heavyarms," whispered Trowa, his eyes appraising the cold machine.

The updated blue-and green-striped Gundam was still terrifying as ever. Though immobile the machine radiated pure cold stoicism; which, ironically, its original color – a garish orange, red, and white – was so conspicuous that OZ soldiers could see it a mile away – and still die before they even said: "It's a Gundam!" The color, suggested by the original Trowa Barton, was an eyesore. He wanted to be seen as a heroic warrior from the colonies, and it was revealed in Heavyarms's paintjob. The mechanics and technicians disagreed, articulating the Gundam would only be more vulnerable to attacks if seen from aerial view. They argued for a more neutral color palette – it was hard enough already to hide a 16 meter robot - but Barton would hear none of it. In his righteous anger, he threatened to fire them if they disobeyed.

The garish and bold colors continued to pose a problem for Trowa during Operation Meteor. He had to painstakingly find new ways and methods to keep Heavyarms as indiscreet as possible – whether covering the machine with brown tarp, hiding it inside sea or air transports, or stowing it underneath the ground inside tunnels and waterways. Any portion left uncovered would result in obtrusive questions and attention he'd rather avoid. Taking Heavyarms into space, during OZ's diplomatic talks with the colony leaders, would have caused an entirely new set of problems: he would have stood out.

During the Eve's War, Trowa had had enough of the original colors, and when the opportunity presented itself aboard the Peacemillion by one of Howard's engineers, he took it unabashedly. He had changed the colors to blue and dark green. Blue and green were not heroic colors; they were natural and neutral, easier on the eyes, and evoked a contemplative dignity, in all of Heavyarms's robust weaponry and size.

Heavyarms personified a walking tank, and strove to annihilate all on the battlefield in a rain of bullets and smoke. It was a formidable weapon, a tool for mass destruction, exemplifying overwhelming firepower. However, Trowa saw it as an emblem of freedom, a martyr for revolution and a necessary tool for times of war. Heavyarms personified the world's negatives and positives, the Colonies' and the Earth's hope and salvation. He could say, in a way, Heavyarms also served as a guide. Together, the two, machine and human, worked in coexistence, contributing to the betterment of the individual... and even the destruction of the world and their selves.

Trowa was quite fond of Heavyarms since its creation in the L-3 Colony Cluster. The Barton Foundation recruited all that they could – those that wanted revenge and those that sought freedom from the Earth Alliance's tyranny (all a small minority of the L-3 population) – and he rose to answer that call, trying, in a world that crushed the dreams of children, that stole their childhood and warped them into tools of war, to find a place to belong.

Trowa had, initially, worked on its predecessor, the XXXG-01H Gundam Heavyarms, as one of the many mechanics for Operation Meteor alongside the head chief engineer, Doktor S. He had memorized every detail of Heavyarms, all its internal and external components and circuitry, weaponry, and facilitated the magnetic coating to the joints. It was a job he enjoyed, because he was good at it.

Trowa had found comfort in mobile suits, constructing and fixing them more so than connecting with people, as machines were disassociated from emotions and human impulses; they were just tools – like him: they were disposable. Still, the construction and maintenance of Heavyarms left an impression on the youth, an attachment he took pleasure in completing for Operation M and then employing, eventually, in a violent manner against the tyranny of OZ and the UESA.

Heavyarms watched Trowa in the tremendous silence and cold, the dim yellow lighting splashed over the armor, gleaming along its armaments in grim resplendence, shadowing its eyes and its half-covered mask. The machine looked intimidating, but Trowa was not frightened; he was more curious, more accustomed to the hulking suit. Trowa stared into its visible dark green eye, which appeared like a fathomless black mirror. Heavyarms, silently, was evaluating him once again, and though the mask was smiling, he was sure the mobile suit was frowning (if it could). He was back in the game of death, ready to soak his hands in the blood of his foes, his former comrades of Operation M and his previous enemies.

His green eyes started at the top of Heavyarms.

At the head, one rectangular eye lurked under its overhanging head frame, the other was covered by a mask, a larger facsimile of Trowa's own costume. Trowa liked the new aesthetic, however, he wondered if the mechanics accounted for blocking a main camera. If not he would have to manually redistribute and divert power to his other cameras to get a better picture. Piloting a mobile suit with a missing camera, though it doesn't often happen, was not something Trowa particularly enjoyed; it was a hassle, and he wanted to avoid anything obstructing his line of sight.

A golden camera was situated atop the head, above the gold v-fin crest. On both sides of the head, two antennas sprung from the ears like whiskers. A blue pharaoh-like red beard jutted from the chin. Head mounted Vulcan guns were parallel on the sides of the face. The machine's shoulders, forearms, and chest were coated in blue paint. Green stripes, like a tiger, were painted in the grooves of the blue armor – which also housed and marked the ballistic weaponry.

Two triumphant golden horns rose and curved on the machine's shoulders. Two machine cannons were mounted on the clavicles; in the shoulders and the side skirts, a total of fifty-two micro missiles lay dormant; two-by-twenty-two homing missiles were located on its smoky-colored legs in two containers and inside the front skirts. Heavyarms had four, smaller, Gatling guns and two more machine cannons inside its chest cavity; two Gundanium knives on its back skirts; on a rack, above the four-sectioned verniers, contained a new bazooka (left) and a long, an extra double-barrel Gatling Gun (right); the other was gripped in its left manipulator. Behind its right arm, extending to the elbow joint, a large Gundanium army knife, barely concealed, protruded. Heavyarms looked combat ready, like a mythological war god or demon dressed in potential for extreme bloodshed. The suit was emblematic of the times.

Trowa turned to the floor and his eyes widened, surprise flickering in his green irises. The world was full of surprises if these pilots had joined their mission. The need must have been great.

 _So these are Duo's surprises._

He smiled, his eyes taking in the mobile suit against the left wall, Sandrock's newest incarnation, the XXXG-01SR2 Gundam Sandrock Kai.

The Gundam was fortified in armor, boasting a strong defense. Every Gundam was plated in Gundanium, although, in Sandrock's case, it was different. Sandrock was reinforced to withstand heavy fire when engaged in close-quarter combat. An all-purpose suit, one of its main components was for desert terrain, to weather the extreme environment, against OZ and the ESUA. Trowa assumed that Sandrock's chief engineer, Instructor H, designed the suit as a command unit for a larger whole in Operation Meteor. The engineer must have had foresight that the Gundams and the Maganac Corps would fight together, and knowing Sandrock's pilot, would delegate strategy and tactics to its pilot.

The Gundam sported a new color scheme. Instead of its customary black and yellow, blue covered its robust chest frame while red highlighted its pectoral vents. Sandrock's segmented, pentagonal-plated shoulders and legs were a smoky gray as if bathed in years of smoke. The head, which was a-near facsimile to its predecessor, the OZ-00MS Tallgeese, had an air of nobility, an elegance of an early nineteenth-century soldier or a Roman commander's galea. The blue helmet framed the face and Sandrock had the ubiquitous, elongated, red chin. Atop the helmet the emblematic red-crested v-fin shined majestically, its golden horns striking and proud. From the crown to the helmet's back was a red, solid, plume.

As an all-purpose suit, Sandrock was equipped with versatile weapons to adapt to whatever situation presented itself – space, desert, urban, forest, and support – it came prepared. Behind its back was a backpack that stored its close combat weapons, the heat shotels. Like Heavyarms's knife, the shotels were made of Gundanium and as long as its 16.5m body. They had the power to generate heat to easier bifurcate opponents. As of this moment, they were stored upside down on its backpack, above its four vernier engines. Below the engines, on the back skirt, was a black machine gun for mid-range combat.

On its left arm, was a snake-eyed shield, featuring two claws as "fangs", and two shield flashers as its "eyes." The shield acted, also, as an offensive weapon as this arm-mounted crushing weapon was formed by combining Sandrock's shield, backpack, and heat shotels. It could capture an enemy mobile suit in-between the shotels, like a crustacean's pincer grasping at prey, and crush them in half.

Sandrock watched Trowa, like a commander to a subordinate, its green eyes keen and attentive. He remembered his first encounter with the regal suit at the Corsica Alliance Munitions Base and Factory last year, where his mission was to eliminate OZ's flow of mobile suits with the Alliance forces, which seemed like ages ago. The world had been very different back then. He had been very different back then.

Trowa had come to destroy the base using Heavyarms to its fullest extent – outrageously armed to obliterate all enemies and fortifications. Waves upon waves of enemy aircrafts and tanks, ground-based fighter mobile suits – OZ-06MS Leos and OZ-07MS Tralgos – beset him on all sides. However, Commander Bonaparte was incompetent; he had underestimated Heavyarms's potential for devastation, and it had cost him the lives of most of his soldiers. But the situation, which he thought was in his hands, turned. The Specials – an OZ elite force of Special Forces soldiers within the Alliance Military – entered the fray in their OZ-07AMS Aries.

Trowa was able to destroy some of their suits but he ran out of ammunition. He resorted to his knife, destroying two but the rest were more resourceful as they surrounded him, imminent death in their glittering beam rifles aimed at him. As an Aries was about to fire a critical shot, he was saved by Sandrock and the Maganac Corps (A forty-man private of Arab mobile suit pilots) and their incursion to destroy the base. Trowa assumed they were part of the Barton Foundation and he battled Sandrock in a one-on-one duel that ended in a draw.

His eyes glided to the mobile suit against the right wall, XXXG-01S Shenlong's newest incarnation, the XXXG-01S2 Altron Gundam, or, as the pilot declared fiercely, Nataku. Developed secretly, along with Deathsythe Hell, on OZ's Lunar Base by the five Gundam engineers, Nataku (Altron) was the premier for close-quarter combat suits. The immobile machine was like a sleeping dragon, majestic yet dangerous at repose. The mobile suit was immense; its immensity laid in the construction of its design and armor, for it bore the resemblance of a mythological dragon-like warrior.

Altron's beauty, its radiant and noble colors portrayed an elegance of nobility and regality. Power; Altron invoked power and its colors did well to highlight its quiet fury. The colors of the machine embodied the Earth's natural environment - vibrant dark green forests, the climbing green moss up long brown trees, and the whitest clouds of the sky. Most of the suit's body – the shoulders, back, side skirts, Dragon Fangs on its forearms, chin, and side head horns - had a dark forest green color scheme; moss green painted the front skirt and the chest; white colored the legs, the pockets of the shoulders, the stabilizer wings on its back and the rear, miniature wings on its Dragon Fangs, and the scaly head. Red coated the sectional blocks of the Dragon Fangs and its bloody fangs when opened, and the central chest vent; and gold trim outlined the chest, and highlighted the Dragon Fangs' mouths and its quadruple V-fin adorned above the head.

Originally, from what Trowa could recall, Shenlong contained a beam glaive, a beam trident, a Dragon fang mounted on its right shoulder, built in flamethrowers inside the fang for mid-range combat, a shield on its left forearm with an attached liaoya, and Vulcan guns on its head. Inside the shoulders and chest contained the program Fighting Spirit, a unique system, when activated, calculates the precise position, weak points, and movements of an enemy.

Altron's weaponry outclassed its former incarnation. On Altron's back, mounted on a turret, was a pair of beam cannons on its scorpion-like tail that rotated 180 degrees. Two Dragon Fangs instead of one, mounted on the forearms. The Dragon Fangs were extendable: they were attached to a set of foldable, highly maneuverable, sectional blocks which was then connected to the arms. This design allowed more flexibility when launched, and if destroyed, would not affect the arms. Moreover, the Fangs were as large as its body and could endure ballistic assaults as a shield. When launched, four miniature wings in the rear controlled the direction of the Dragon Fangs.

Inside the Dragon Fangs contained a nozzle for its flamethrowers for short-to-mid range attacks, which could melt the densest metals and armor like wax. Altron's last weapon, its main combat arsenal, was its twin beam trident. The twin beam trident was upgraded from Shenlong's glaive for more versatility and strength, to boost its offensive prowess when fighting multiple enemies. The pilot had mastered the suit, and its performance on the battlefield, when arriving to meet its foes, machine and human alike, were petrified by its ferocity.

However, on closer inspection, Trowa noticed the mobile suit had undergone a change. It wasn't subtle for the cold and metallic truth jutted from behind the suit on both sides, like a large and conspicuous gift hidden behind a smaller object. Usually, the retractable trident was situated under the verniers, however, as it was there, the emitters were gone, replaced by a metal cap. Further along, below the staff, were two, tempered Gundamium alloy, aggressively tapered blades peaking from behind the suit.

Trowa found it a strange choice. He knew the pilot relied on beam weapons because of their flexibility and malleability; he was able to accentuate different strikes to produce any desired offensive strike. The scorpion-like tail was removed, decreasing Altron's mid-range combat. His new equipment, in some ways, limited his attacks. He wondered idly why the pilot would make such a drastic choice. He limited his options – and that could mean certain death on the battlefield.

Trowa gazed across the ground and saw Duo's mobile suit, XXXG-01D2 Gundam Deathscythe Hell. It was one frightening piece of machinery. Lying on the floor, Deathscythe stared at him like a spawn from hell. If Heavyarms was the embodiment of total war, a machine worthy of demolishing entire bases single-handedly and annihilating battalions, then Deathscythe Hell was something drastically different. It had the appeal, the creeping darkness and the haunting of nightmares of legend: the Grim Reaper.

While Heavyarms was designed (and armed) with a surfeit of weaponry to tear the world asunder and leave it smoking, in ashes, Deathscyhthe Hell reaped its befallen opponents, appearing from the darkness, scythe raised in impending slaughter, cloak unfolded, revealing its skeletally-designed frame, rendering its foes paralyzed and drawing them into the eternal flames of hell. The machine belonged to the darkness, an entity of stealth and mass deception. Deathscythe lived and struck from the shadows. A personification of the death god, its long black bat-like wings shrouded the suit's skeletally-designed frame like the Reaper's cloak. Long jagged white spikes erupted from its kneecaps and shoulders, a protective defense for close combat.

The mobile suit was equipped with an active cloak, the product of Mercurius' planet defensors, where four field generators function as a defensive weapon against beam weaponry. The wings could repel beams and had an anti-beam coating. The Hyper Jammers were on the backpack, located on a nozzle, that when open, would release particles that could scramble and jam enemy radar and cameras.

Trowa could see why Deathscythe made such a formidable creature. The reconstructed and updated successor of XXXG-01D Gundam Deathscythe still held the creative touch of Professor G, the one of many eccentric engineers of Operation M's Gundams. Deathscyhthe Hell, truly, was a work of art. He still regretted destroying the original during the war, but Duo forgave him. He didn't hold grudges as long as he got even – and Duo always got even. Speaking of Duo, Trowa saw him enter the cargo bay, stopping at the ingress, looking up.

"Pretty neat, huh?" Duo remarked from below, his eyes bemused by Towa' rapt attention on his mobile suit. He jumped up, meeting Trowa in the air. To steady himself, Duo grabbed onto Trowa's left shoulder.

"Howard and I made some modifications to my buddy. We changed the double beam scythe to a double Gundanium scythe that's retractable; added another Gundanium component inside the buster shield, an extendable, heat-radiating blade, replacing the beam emitter, a chain for retracting the shield, and on the shields two miniature wings like on Wufei's Gundam would control the direction of the attack; and integrated a 90mm Gatling gun inside the right forearm. You could say we pulled a-Heero."

Duo was referencing the time where Heero Yuy customized Wing Zero by adding angel wings to his suit, to give it greater propulsion power, he had said simply. The Gundam pilots had been concerned, thinking Heero was preparing for a new war, but he was, apparently – Trowa had laughed loudly at his explanation, which was rarity for him – bored. Heero said he had too much time on his hands. He hadn't been so amused since he had asked Heero for advice on following his self-destructive example of blowing himself up.

"You went the same way that Wufei did his suit. Why did you replace the beam weaponry? The scythes' swings derive on the extension of the beam, especially with the booster?"

Duo chuckled, his eyes twinkling. "Wufei must've been copying me since I am a trendsetter. I can't help that I'm so popular these days."

Duo's pompous remark elicited a smile from Trowa. Arrogance ran in all the pilots' blood. Even Trowa was not immune to it, although, he could say he never let it rule him. "A scythe is used for reaping crops, but in the Grim Reaper's case," Duo said, "souls are reaped and harvested. In most western mythos, the Grim Reaper carried a metal scythe, so what better than to turn fiction into reality, the true God of Death incarnation. I wanted it to be as identical, a-near replica, of the God of Death. As for the beam weaponry, I'll just have to compensate on how well I swing the good ol' scythe. Not that I'm complaining, I'm pretty good with melee weapons.

"Also, man, Howard's new guy, Liam, was the one who added the new weapons!" Duo's expression turned sheepish and he looked down.

"What's the matter?"

Duo paused, sighed, and turned to Trowa. Trowa could feel Duo's nervousness. "You're not gonna like this, but Liam went a little overboard with the modifications."

Trowa narrowed his eyes and his lips thinned. "What did he do to Heavyarms?"

Duo gave a shaky laugh. "Well… um… I mean it wasn't my decision, yeah." Duo rubbed the back of his head, seemingly prolonging the moment. Trowa called his name.

Duo sighed once more and looked Trowa in the eyes. "Liam, he altered your Gatling Guns – I mean I tried to tell him to change it back but I - we were running late so..."

Trowa remained silent, but his silence, a cold and imposing force made Duo uncomfortable as he altered rubbing his hands from behind his head. Trowa crossed his arms and his head dipped down, a sign of Trowa's brooding and biting and sarcastic demeanor. Duo said hurriedly, "Liam changed your ammunition from beams shells to physical shells."

Trowa eyes morphed into fire. His anger was swift and it burned into Duo. How could have this happened? Was Liam a fool? Trowa's fingers tighten their grips on his biceps.

"Does he not realize that physical shells against Gundanium alloy, as I'm sure we'll be encountering suits composed of such material, are ineffectual? Did his calculations not apply to enemy mobile suits immune to physical ammunition like the Virgos?" Trowa spat harshly.

He was now at a disadvantage in combat. Beam weaponry in this age of combat was a necessity. Enemy mobile suits could withstand an onslaught of high caliber bullet shells but beams were the game changer. The only damage he could do would be to their joints and cameras, but even that was difficult in a free-roaming environment like space.

Duo placed his hands up in defense. "I know, I know, man. Even Howard ragged on him but we can't really change it, can we?"

Trowa uncrossed his arms. "I believe not. I'll have to make up for it with my missiles and Heavyarms's Gundanium knife and the new bazooka. I hadn't had to rely on physical shells since Operation M. I'd rather not engage in close quarter combat. It's not that I don't think I can win, quite the contrary; but I have far better aim. This will put me in a precarious position."

Trowa sighed. "By the way," he said, changing the conversation. The longer he mulled over Liam's incompetence the more his anger grew. Trowa needed another outlet and he knew where to begin.

"Your other surprises have definitely caught my attention. You didn't tell me Wufei would be here." Trowa titled his head up. "Knowing him, he usually has his own agenda."

Duo gave a helpless smile and shrugged. "I thought it would be nice since the White Fang mission. He was such a pessimist back then, man! All gloomy, ya know. I thought to myself, 'We're about to fight the bad guys, like always, and preserve this peace we fought so hard to attain. I bet this would cheer him up!' However, as of now, he's been more quiet and brooding than usual. I can't seem to figure the guy out."

"Remember Duo, acclimating to peace hasn't been so easy for everyone," said Trowa, resting his eyes, again, on Altron. He crossed his arms, feeling a sudden coldness wash over him, and it wasn't the chill from the room. The coldness, this sense of dread that ran through him, seemed to be emanating from Altron, as if her spirit was in great pain.

"Some of us can't live without such meaning. The war formed, trained and defined us, into weapons as our only possibility in life – nothing but that reality was possible for us. It was the only thing that we knew. Steel and blood. War and tragedy. We were the living vehicles spearheading revenge and peace for the Colonies. But we found something through the war for us to cherish, to return our humanity, and persevere in this new world. We re-found ourselves. I think Wufei hasn't come to terms with his new role in life yet – not like the rest us. Some scars continue to bleed. Untreated and left alone, it'll soon fester and consume your very actions. You'll start to manifest your infection in ways that are cumbersome to your personal growth."

"You're right." Duo frowned. "We fought like hell and still feel the war hovering over us. But we had a place to return to, friends and family. You don't think Wufei had anyone left?"

Trowa shook his head. He looked closer at Altron. The machine lay in somber resplendence as the dim bars of light traveled the length of the suit. The silence of the bay colluded with the light and shadows, and Altron bathed in their silent ache. The suit almost appeared to be crying where a bar of light lined down Altron's green eye. The scene made Trowa wonder, perplexed, by this phenomenon, of how a magnificent suit could bear so much weight.

Altron had always appeared menacing, holding a quiet majesty that commanded attention. From her lightning strikes and thundering presence to her radiance and tenacity within, in battle, Altron had carried her pilot's sense of justice as a powerful symbol of opposition and judge against his enemies. But looking on her now, looking at how solemn, how alone, captive in this cold and dim cargo bay, the suit lay vulnerable to a world where its purpose had been stalled, where its pilot had no use for her.

It was a saddening sight to see.

 _Is this the price of Relena's peace?_ Trowa wondered inwardly, facing the four Gundams, the heaviness of the room pressing down on him. If it was, then the price came at a cost to the pilots, for the Gundams were more than their representations of will, they were entities of wisdom, wells of self-knowledge. But the price of such wisdom and knowledge came at their sanity and bodies, for they must be utilized, brutally and ruthlessly, for warfare.

"That's a question I can't answer. Only Wufei would know," responded Trowa after a moment of silent rumination.

"Like hell he would say as much," Duo scoffed. "Sometimes he's such a closed book. Heero's easier to read, and that in itself took a while to understand."

An agitated Duo once more raked a hand through his bangs and then down his face, moaning over the inequities that happen to a Gundam pilot's life. He brought his wrist to his face and his frown soon vanished like the morning as he checked the time on his watch. His blue eyes widened in alarm. "Damn!" he exclaimed, "Time's up. Let's get hell out of here."

The two made to the flight deck. Upon arrival a familiar strip of platinum blond caught Trowa's eye. Standing from his seat, the pilot of Sandrock, Quatre Raberba Winner, greeted them with a warm smile. Quatre was a very slender youth, whose almost fragile appearance belied a determination and strength stronger than the world, which manifested in his startling blue eyes that sparkled like water touched by the sun, and an incredible stamina to survive. They were eyes that endured the greatest hardships but chose, when he could have surrendered to despair and anger, to give empathy and kindness. A vision Quatre was trying, in this new world, to make reality.

He still bore a boyish and soft visage; his ovular face was changing, maturing, and shedding his youth. His platinum bangs remained windswept yet longer, dangling in front of his eyes. He wore a lavender shemagh-styled keffiyeh draped over his shoulders as a scarf, a light blue shirt, brown pants and sandals. Compared to Duo and Trowa, Quatre looked the most out of place on the ship, or more suited for a desert environment, than the dangerous mission they were about to embark.

"Trowa! It's been too long." His smile that invited warmth became sad. "But I'm sorry we have to meet again under these circumstances. It seems the peace we fought so hard to achieve is about to be broken. The power we were given, it seems, couldn't prevent such an imminent threat. I wish that we – that I - foresaw -"

"There you go wishing!" interjected Duo. "Quatre, we didn't know! You shouldn't blame yourself. The Old Man was up to his no good tricks." Duo cocked his head at Trowa. "You should have seen him earlier! My word, this guy was a complete mess!"

"Duo, now you're exaggerating," Quatre argued. Duo chuckled in response and shrugged. Duo's cobalt blue eyes sparkled jocularly. Duo knew when to tease and have fun and when to, in severe moments, be serious. Right now, Duo looked in the mood for teasing.

"He's right, Quatre," agreed Trowa, "there's no point in worrying about or changing the past. The present matters most. It's where we can make the difference."

Quatre nodded, though still looking discouraged. "Duo, Trowa, you're right. However, I still can't help but feel the way I do. We bear some responsibility."

"Of course we are right, pal." Duo slung an arm over Quatre's shoulders. "Now, let's get on our way! I don't wanna be behind schedule."

"If you weren't lacking in awareness before, I wonder how in the world you weren't annihilated on the battlefield then, with your too carefree attitude. Your dawdling on this important mission is costly not only to us, but to the Colonies as well," spoke a familiar and acerbic voice.

"What?" Duo said, cocking his head to the side, his eyes trained on the seat where the voice spoke.

Sitting in a back seat behind the pilot chair, a pair of astute and scrutinizing dark eyes greeted them. The brown eyes were black as obsidian and seemed to peer through them with burning intensity. The eyes swallowed them, searching and drawing conclusions.

Chang Wufei didn't move from his chair. He titled his head imperceptibly but remained seated, arms crossed, face expressionless. Wufei looked more or less the same to Trowa: his black hair was slicked back severely into a ponytail that reached past the nape of his neck, his skin was pale yellow, his ovular face had become thinner and sharper, and he was dressed in a black spacesuit. Wufei's dark eyes found their new target: Trowa.

A moment of silence past only accompanied with the incessant beeps of the ship's interface. Trowa wasn't fazed by Wufei's subtle challenge; he held his stare. Wufei's dark eyes remained latched on to Trowa's, appraising his readiness, his devotion to the mission, and seemingly finding what he sought, then, sharply, shifted his focus to Duo's, who made a face, raising a thin eyebrow in wariness.

"Yeesh. Thank you for shaming my character, Wufei, but I am only _human_. I ain't like you and your whatever the Kung Fu training you had on Colony A202. Give me a break."

"Talk about a warm greeting," Duo murmured in Trowa's ear. "I offered him a chance to come along but he wanted to sulk by his lonesome on this depressing flight deck. I guess Quatre's company couldn't warm his cold heart. The guy needs to relax some more. Ya hear that?" Duo said the last words louder, aimed at the unperturbed Wufei.

Trowa smiled in response. Wufei's cool greeting was as warm as ever. He took the seat left of the pilot's chair.

"Now let's get on our way! I don't wanna be behind schedule. Tally-Ho!"

"You already are," Wufei said bluntly. "Now shut up and get going." Duo rolled his eyes, sighing, while giving Wufei annoyed glances. Wufei ignored him, choosing to close his eyes to ward off all of Duo's facial slights while Quatre settled down in the back, chuckling behind his hand.

The pilots settled in their seats, buckling their seatbelts, and jetted from the colony. Space's ubiquitous eyes, the stars, watched them from afar, twinkling in the darkness. The ship, for a while, made its way through L-3 to the L-2 colonies, without any hindrances, in relative silence. Morpheus came, and Trowa fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

The hours past and Trowa awoke from his slumber. Opening his green eyes, his ponderous gaze bore into space, his bleary mind trying to find answers within its vastness; a vastness that eluded the Gundam pilot, for space as large as it was, was still an anomaly. No one knew what space represented in its ethereal anonymity, except those that survived in its large body, and even that was lost in the cosmic vacuum.

Many in the Earth's Sphere, in the initial race to space, to construct resource satellites and colonies, thought space represented progress, as Earth became consumed and overpopulated by humans, seeking to extract and conquer all its resources and minerals, its beauty, and consequently, their own souls, for a modicum of power.

It was this incoherence, trapped by a state of war and violence, violence – also as a means of escape – led to the progression of the space colonies, a safe haven from the Earth's natural disasters and oversaturation and reliance on Earth's natural resources. Peace, which had eluded the Earth, as the UESA came into power, became near certainty, when the venerated politician, Heero Yuy, took his mass wave of pacifism and ignited a revolution of demilitarization. The Alliance and OZ abjured that notion. Weapons were their means of control, and subjugation and colonization was their law. And Trowa knew the bounds the Alliance and OZ would go to maintain their domineering presence over the colonies: they would simply exceed them to justify their control.

In a proclamation to the world, OZ had nefariously and clandestinely planned and executed the assassination of Heero Yuy in After Colony 185, blaming Yuy's death on some lone, deranged gunman. No one knew the gunman; he had no name or face, but when the authorities caught him, he had mysteriously disappeared in police custody. However, the colony denizens were not fooled. Most did not buy in to the Alliance's and OZ's propaganda, and a minute few plotted revenge.

Space became oppressed and an enduring movement of rebellion fermented inside grassroots organizations. Trowa had joined those grassroots movements and became embroiled in the affairs of the oppressed space colonies. Like so many before him, he had taken a liking for space and its denizens and without a home, for he a mere vagabond scouring the beleaguered streets for jobs, assimilated flawlessly into spacenoid society. Trowa had taken up the cause of spacenoid independence and enmeshed himself in the war.

War became the foundation; war with humans; and war against humans, using mobile dolls to ensure conquest.

Looking out the flight deck window, streams of wreckage and detritus would past by them in silence. It was common these days to pass wreckage from previous battles, the more frequent they appeared, and the more concerned Trowa grew. It seemed to stir something within the boy, something awful and something odious. The wreckage came like a warning from a past era that seemed to haunt Trowa.

A mobile doll head of an OZ-02MD Virgo came into view, the purple camera cracked, staring expressionlessly in a heavy silence - weighed by OZ's conquest of space, followed by the Artemis Revolution, leading to the White Fang and the Eve's War; the bane of the Gundam pilots and the pride of the mad scientist, Tubarov - judging, dimly, where this new era was headed. Would there be more arms and dolls, the price of human folly and corruption, the lure for their own dark volition? it seemed to ask mockingly. As the ship moved away, leaving the Virgo head in the void, its form becoming indistinguishable from space, the head's stare became hostile and accusing, and it seemed to carry a promise, a silent whisper of things to come.

"The remains of an old age… War seems to follow us around too often. There's not enough kindness and love to hold the world together and sustain it. It's only held by a few that keep the world from disarray. But those few, as strong as they are, can only endure so much before they're crushed by madness and hatred," Trowa heard Quatre whisper.

Quatre was staring at the stars too, his light blue eyes reflecting the myriad of stars from the window. The stars and his eyes, as if interconnected, appeared dim and somber. Trowa agreed inwardly. War was the immutable stain that could never be scrubbed away, no matter how lighter the world became, it remained, strikingly persistent and ugly.

He then moved his eyes onto Duo. He was in repose in his seat - his eyes closed, a placid smile playing on his lips, and his wild bangs finally free from the confines of his cap, touching his skin, and his hands tucked behind his head. The ship was on autopilot giving a reprieve to Duo, whom was relaxing and as he said earlier, Kicking it!

Duo found comfort in outer space; he was a child of it – from the war and freedom to its pacifistic stances – and he was easygoing, like most colonists. Trowa was sure the pre-war era, under the UESA, had formed him, too, but, conversely, instead of bitterness, he carried a great sense of humor however dark at times in the heat of battle. Duo had his moments, when his friendly disposition, at times, would slip, revealing with striking clarity and perception, a human and earnest perspective uncharacteristic of his nature. It was odd, for the gregarious youth's seriousness contrasted greatly with the surface personality presented to the Gundam pilots and everyone else.

Duo Maxwell was more than he appeared. More often than not one shows the surface because if one looks too deeply at the layered heart, the complexity and the reality become visceral, exposing the shielded vulnerability and raw emotions withheld and locked away from prying eyes that could cause, inadvertently, more hurt. What had Duo locked away in his heart was something only Duo knew, and Duo rarely said anything about it. Trowa wondered what kind of past Duo endured in his childhood. He had a suspicion Duo's had a similar beginnings. It was the type of knowledge Trowa had observed from his actions. Duo rarely talked about his past – he wasn't alone in that matter – but he and Trowa shared a love and admiration for outer space and its people. Shared goals and wishes for the betterment of spacenoids brought them together, and were bringing them to another conflict.

"Why is the Barton Foundation finally making their move now?" Trowa started suddenly, returning his view to the stars. The thought had been bothering him since he had received Duo's message.

Duo's placid smile disintegrated into a frown. He opened a cobalt blue eye, turning it on Trowa. "For starters, it's always nothin' good. I've got intelligence from the Sweepers. Dekim's been in development these last few months. He's been sending out mass calls for soldiers from OZ and the White Fang and any colonists' disappointed with the new world government. It's the calling for another revolution!"

Duo paused, and shook his head, crossing his arms, as if disbelieving the imminent reality of such an event. It could only lead to catastrophe and self-destruction. "What I can't understand is why people wanna start another war? We achieved peace for space and Earth – that should have been enough! We defeated the bad guys, didn't we? Didn't that mean something – _anything!_ \- to them? Those damn _fools_! They're starting uprisings in space – and the Colonies, and the Earth won't be prepared for such an attack. I guess those with power can never, truly, let go of it. They always wanna cause trouble for the rest of us. We left ourselves wide open this time. The damn devil's luck for these fools, eh?"

"Was peace really attained," spoke Wufei, his tone cynical, "if it can be broken so easily." He leaned his head against the side windows, gazing into space. His dark eyes seemed to flash in anger. Wufei's question elicited a visible reaction from his fellow pilots. Trowa shifted his green eyes on Wufei.

Wufei had a point. The growing ambivalence to the ESUN's rule and the purposeless soldiers who flocked to another fight, to find their place once more in the world, could not be discounted. There was a restlessness he felt from veteran soldiers whom he passed in the Colonies, a quiet fury for purpose. He could not deny that even he himself was facing an inner conflict that revolved around fighting and his search for existence post-war.

"You don't think so?" Duo asked, his tone incredulous, as he rounded on Wufei. "Come on, Wufei, look where we're at?! Look at us! The Colonies! When was the last time you saw kids like us celebrating in the streets without the threat of force?"

"Duo has a point, Wufei," Quatre chimed. "Overall, the colony denizens want peace. It's the soldiers who can't stop."

Wufei closed his eyes. "Should they be allowed to stop when they're discarded like trash for this new era? You should ask Dekim and the soldiers aligning with him that type of question, Duo. An air of uncertainty, like I said on that abandoned L-3 colony, has finally reached threshold, and is swiftly becoming a gale. We're on the brink of war. If peace really has been achieved, this wouldn't – shouldn't have happened."

"I see." Trowa nodded, thinking, then, "The soldiers, now, have nowhere to go after the complete dissolution of armaments. Dekim's promising them a new battlefield. This allure will ignite their discontent of the ESUN's policies."

Something struck Trowa's mind. He started connecting the dots. "This isn't an isolated event. He must have organized this immediately after Operation M's failure as a contingency. This cannot be overlooked as a mere resurgence in power. His power has never wavered; he was simply bidding his time, disseminating new orders from the shadows, to capitalize on an unaware populace."

"Now that's a scary thought," Duo said, whistling. His blue eyes had become darker. "He still wants to massacre the Earth."

"Dekim was never one to do things halfheartedly. The Gundam engineers were right in dissuading us from the ramifications of the original Operation M," added Quatre. He shifted in his seat, and turned his gaze on Duo, his face earnest. "I could never live with myself if I allowed the original Operation Meteor to go unchallenged. I don't think it's what all five us wanted – which is why we rebelled in the first place. None of our hearts could take such a blow. Killing billions?! for independence? We took on the burdens of the Colonies ourselves so they wouldn't have to dirty their hands. We bore the brunt of their hate."

Duo snorted. "I couldn't sit on my ass and watch Dekim genocide a billion people, and us, sweep in as the heroes and subjugate the people! I would never use my buddy for such dastardly methods! To be a tool for mass-murder?! I'm more willing to kill myself than become a mass-murdering hero."

Duo said the last bit lowly, but the three pilots understood the despicableness of the situation. Trowa agreed, as he too deviated from the original plan. Bringing untold pain on billions was not something he could tolerate or endorse. He wanted no part in the original operation. He had said as much to Doktor S when Heavyarms had become his responsibility after Barton's assassination. Trowa may have had considered himself a tool of war, but the destruction of a people for revenge, surmounted and broke through his ruthlessness. He deplored killing innocents. Those who plotted against the colonies' independence were the ones that needed to be eradicated completely, not innocent bystanders.

"We should have known Dekim never trusted the engineers, since we were so scattered," Duo went on. "Just look at Quinze! I bet you anything Quinze and the White Fang were the first contingency plan after our deviation from Operation M. This makes sense for Dekim's recruitment of former OZ and White Fang soldiers. Operation Meteor meant more to him, on a mass casualty scale, than freedom from the UESA and OZ. So much for following Heero Yuy's ideals of total pacifism and peace for the colonies! What a load of bullshit."

A pregnant silence came, and it unnerved the pilots as it gnawed at a past returning to the present. Duo continued. "You got my emails from the Sweeper and Preventer intelligence, Trowa?" Trowa nodded.

"Dekim's operations are everywhere – from all Lagrange points to Mars. The Preventers are spread thin, and we're tryin' to prevent his plans from gainin' momentum. It's tough work, man. I'm feeling all the pre-Operation M stress again." Duo shook his head wearily.

"I've sent the Maganac Corps to support the Preventer forces. The situation has become direr than I expected," Quatre said. He gripped his seat's arms. It was the only thing he could do to contain himself from standing up. "Rashid has taken control of his division and is searching in the L-5 colonies. Abdul, Ahmad, Auda are in command of their own and are investigating the L-2, L-3, L-4, respectively. I trust Heero, Ms. Sally and Ms. Noin, are searching in their areas, as well."

"This should have triggered a large commotion over the media," Trowa said. "Why hasn't it? This is explosive news, and I'm sure, somehow, it should have reached the public by now, with communications now open between the Colonies."

"Une and Noin have kept a media blackout; they're afraid of the repercussions if we don't stop 'em in time," said Duo, "The leaks could cause hysteria."

Duo's mouth twitched and Trowa noted how worried his comrade was about this situation. His blue eyes had lost their usual mirth and twinkle. Duo was frustrated and his frustration stemmed from his helplessness. The world was changing, and war, which seemed so distant almost a year ago, was becoming louder and louder, a driving force spurned on by the discontent of a few. It would soon reach their doorstep. Luckily, it hadn't arrived yet, but Trowa knew time was dwindling. They needed to silence those cries of war before they became emboldened, public proclamations.

"Fear of panic," Trowa said, crossing his arms.

Duo nodded. "Yeah. We're trying to foil this before it becomes a gigantic mess, and we end up in war. A war that Earth and especially the Colonies don't need!" He clenched his fists, his face set in determination.

"We can't let all that we've worked we created until now vanish, caused by those fools and their games. It would be a damn shame. We gotta squash their little rebellious plans. We have a peace to preserve."

"This sounds like an obvious diversion. Mars…? It's too far," Trowa speculated, frowning. Mars was about 85.48 million miles from Earth, at such a distance, it seemed inconceivable to setup operations. It felt like they were walking towards a grave trap.

"I agree. This is obviously a trap," said Wufei. He opened his dark eyes once more and narrowed them into slits, as if to watch the stars in suspicion. The stars merely sparkled back, neither hiding the truth nor giving him an answer. "What we might find could be important, could be the evidence that we need, however, it could also deceive us. If a man dreams it, surely, he'll get what his heart's desire. It also applies to odious men like Dekim. Self-indulgent ambition is a dangerous weapon. And we know that's the one thing Dekim never lacks."

"This would be a perfect chance for him to go unnoticed," Duo reasoned, turning his body to Wufei. "Nobody would think of such a faraway target. It would give him leeway to conduct any mass-scale operation without threat of interruption. He gotta hide his cards somehow, dontcha think?"

"If by chance that your inference is wrong, this would provide an opportunity to segregate the Gundams and all Preventer agents away from the Earth – leaving it conquerable. This is a big gambit Dekim's betting on – and you," Trowa said, giving Duo a pointed look.

Assumptions lead to mistakes and those mistakes could prove devastating if they were wrong, thought Trowa. He could envision in his mind's eye Heero's cool and accusing and penetrating glare at forming assumptions before the truth was verified in cold, undisputable evidence. Indeed Trowa also knew that from personal experience with a distraught Quatre, an encounter he was fortunate to survive with all his limbs intact. Assumptions lacked weight and were at risk, at bottom, to take off past reality. Trowa figured he would rather be tied down by evidence he could ascertain and work with than pure speculation.

"Yeah, I agree," Duo responded, "but we can't overestimate his forces. This is Dekim Barton we're talkin' 'bout – the man whose orders conditioned us into the very soldiers we are today. I wouldn't put it past his ol', gnarled, fingers to do somethin' as bold as this. The spiteful Old Man."

"I was in the same boat as you were in Trowa," admitted Quatre, "until Duo showed me some reports. Initially, I rejected this offer. Mars, strategically, wouldn't be a threat to us as it was out of range, and the Foundation was still in their initial development. However, if we could sever the head off the beast first, then we could suppress and eliminate other key components. He's still in the preparatory stages, according to the report."

"Anyway, a Sweeper report indicated large amounts of neo-titanium had been transported via ship on route to Mars, just a few days ago," Duo remarked. He leaned forward and the ceiling light caught his determined blue eyes, making them glint. "Report checks out. I've _seen_ the evidence. We also sent a reconnaissance satellite to Mars to observe the Old Man's movements after the initial report from a Preventer agent. Bases at Lagrange points were transporting and in trade to Mars. By the time we had enough information, the recon satellite was destroyed by somethin'. Dekim is building somethin' – we're all sure about that. What he's building is a mystery. Good thing we know he has a resource satellite functioning as a factory with how much neo-titanium he's transporting."

"That's why we're going to take the Mars route, to uncover it?" Trowa asked, returning his eyes to space.

"Yep! We need strike while the iron is hot. Hopefully, he doesn't know that we fully caught on. We're hoping to squash this rebellion before it's too late," Duo said, a confident smile on his face.

Trowa simply blinked slowly, taking in the information. "I understand."

Trowa did understand. Attacking enemies while at their preliminary stages would counter and halt their movement. However, a thought troubled him – their forces would be stretched thin, including the Gundam pilots; and if it was a trap, Dekim could capitalize on their separation. It was a startling conundrum that seemed to fester the more they grew closer to their destination.

* * *

Three weeks of travel had passed in solitude only space was known for: a startling quietness that stemmed from nothing and everything, sometimes in the background, sometimes in the foreground, like an invisible presence. It remained. Unchanged. Eternal. The stars observed them; their palpitating beats, the winks in the distance, which stretched on for eternity, were the four Gundam pilots' only comforts.

However, for Trowa, having Duo, Quatre, and Wufei as companions made time short, and, if he was honest with himself, the jovial and friendly Gundam pilots eased his feelings of loneliness. Wufei's mostly silent companionship was appreciated. He may have not said much, but his presence made the voyage interesting. They had spent the time talking, strategizing, and playing chess – many games of chess, where Trowa had come close to first. Quatre had beaten his fellows by a small margin. Quatre was a tough opponent; his strategies were more thought-out than Duo's. Quatre was a logical thinker, knowing every piece on the chessboard and their functions, and he would employ and maximize their efficiency to capture a win. Every move carried a plan to checkmate him.

Duo, like his Gundam, was evasive and his moves unconventional. At times predicting him and his uncanny abilities was like sifting through a haystack blindly, looking for the needle that always evaded reach. If one was not careful the innocuous task could become injurious when the needle, after prolonged searching, finally reveals itself, and pierces the skin.

Wufei was fire, an offensive battle strategist that demanded Trowa answer to his sharp and bold moves. Wufei asserted offensive dominance. His offense was his defense, and even his defense burned. Trowa had to meet Wufei's fiery boldness with cunning and shrewdness – but, many times, in his counterstrikes, Wufei saw through his plans and vice versa, when Trowa would entrap the stubborn pilot into a corner, and that also proved dangerous, for caging Wufei was like tempting a powerful beast into unpredictability. A cornered beast sought to change its fate in any way that it can, even if that meant death.

Finally, the quad arrived at the red planet. It was now mid-November, After Colony 196.

"There it is! Our little red jewel," Duo said, leaning towards the flight deck window from his seat. "Looks a whole lot better seeing it in real life than in pictures, eh?"

The ship's sensors alerted the group to the satellite. Trowa zoomed in on the monitors, spotting the space station. Trowa had piloted the last duration of their voyage; Duo took the first, Quatre the second.

The screen revealed a small resource satellite floating in Mars's orbit. It had a coarse and rocky outer layer the color of deep grey stone. Its rocky topography was full of scars and large craters as if the asteroid was used as a testbed for a battlefield. Some scars looked new, and some were caked in black burns, scorched across its surface.

 _The opening act begins as the curtain rises_. _Let's see how the actors perform._

They drifted closer to the planet. He powered down the ship's engines, knowing at a certain range, the enemy would detect them on their radar.

"This should be a good place to stop," informed Trowa to the rest.

"We should have the element of surprise for the time being," Quatre said, smiling.

Wufei stood and headed out the flight deck doors. The remaining trio returned looks of knowing. Wufei never wasted a moment. He was a man of action.

"Looks like someone's eager. Good. Let's suit up, fellas. We can't let Wufei have all the fun now, can we? I'm pretty sure the Barton Foundation has a basket of treats waiting for us. No need for Wufei to hog them all for himself and leave us out in the cold," Duo said with a smile and wink, patting Trowa's shoulder as he stood. He took the lead to the cargo bay.

Trowa made his way to Heavyarms, donning his black space suit and carrying his helmet underarm. He entered Heavyarms's cockpit. He saw Duo enter Deathscythe Hell from the corner of his eye and Altron's cockpit close. Quatre dashed to Sandrock. He stowed his helmet into a compartment behind the overhead monitor.

Sitting against his seat, completely enveloped in darkness, relief flooded Trowa. The pilot had returned to his first home. Trowa's finger's glided effortlessly over the keyboard, awakening Heavyarms from its slumber, like a musician who had returned to playing her instrument after a long break – the mind and the body never forgets; they simply lead by instinct. The monitors, all six – one in the middle, two on Trowa's right and left side, and one above his head – flashed on. Trowa had during the trip reconfigured other cameras, optically, to replace the covered right eye. It may have not aligned with the other head camera by a few feet, but it would have to do. The lights of his interface beeped around him, the familiar beeping that gave him comfort; that used to be an arrhythmic lullaby that would lull him to sleep when he fought the world.

Heavyarms's green eyes pulsated with power, and the mobile suit stood, followed by Deathscythe Hell, Altron, and Sandrock. He then proceeded to open the cargo bay doors and using Heavyarms's right index finger, pressed the right side of the touchpad. The doors opened to an expanse of awaiting stars. Trowa buckled his seatbelt and pressed the acceleration pedals into space, steering his suit towards the station.

A strange feeling stirred within him as they neared the station. Their presence should have alerted the ship operators (though Gundanium wasn't detected on radar, their suits' heat sources should have been detected, knowing Dekim had intelligence on Gundanium alloy's properties), but there was no signal. In fact, nothing greeted them. No reaction or response. Using his infrared scanners, he scanned the orbital station… and then eyed it warily, his green eyes narrowing.

 _Damn. We were fooled._ The scan did not detect any lifeforms.

"Were we too late, or was this a ruse?" Trowa asked. If it was a ruse, and they had fallen into Dekim's trap. The trap had been well orchestrated: four Gundam pilots were out of the way.

An image of Duo appeared on his main monitor. The young man's face was stony. He had probably come to the same conclusion.

"I don't detect any readings of heat sources nor sentient life on the station. It's like it's deserted…" Duo trailed off, his serious face turning contemplative.

Quatre's face appeared on his left monitor. He had on his goggles. "Which probably means this was a trap," he said dejectedly.

Wufei's face appeared on his right monitor. "We were lured by the false scent of blood." He smirked, as if amused by the precarious situation. He turned to Duo. "You were wrong. Still, -"

"You just gotta rub it in, dontcha, buddy?" Duo murmured.

"- we shouldn't leave just yet. We need all the information we can get. The facility should be of some use."

"Exactly!" Quatre agreed. "The satellite should have their coordinates of their whereabouts, if they haven't already deleted them. Any evidence is important. Anything that we can throw against Dekim would be beneficial in the long-run."

Duo, Trowa, and Wufei agreed and they jetted towards the station.

The pilots rounded the station on the planet's side, seeing an open hangar at the bottom of the asteroid. As they neared, Trowa's main monitor alerted him, flashing red frantically. His systems were detecting rising temperatures within the asteroid! The temperature increased drastically to extreme proportions, and started raging on the rock as fire hurled from the hangar. Blazing ropes sprouted from the asteroid, cracking the surface, spiraling and intertwining and then fading out into burning embers. Fire blazed as explosions erupted in multitudes, engulfing the station like fireworks.

"What the hell?!" Duo yelled, distancing his suit from the fiery wreckage.

"It was a trap! They were waiting for us!" Trowa called in consternation. They were lured here, and now, all evidence was incinerated. Quatre voiced the same, looking on worriedly at the destruction of the satellite.

"Damn the Barton Foundation to hell!" Duo cursed as Deathscythe soared upward, still watching the station alight in fire.

In one final flash that brightened and flooded Trowa's monitors, the base detonated. Trowa put his hands up to shield his face from the blinding light. When the light dimmed, all that was left of the base was molten detritus that floated mockingly at their loss chance.

"Is everyone all right?" Quatre said. Sandrock was to his right.

"Whoo! That was a close one!" exclaimed Duo. "One second too late and that could have been us. What horrible timing, ya know. I'm good, Quatre, just pissed. How underhanded could a man get?"

"We should hurry up and leave," Wufei urged. "The more time spent here, the more time the Colonies turn to madness and war."

"Definitely," Trowa agreed. He gave a small sympathetic smile to Duo, knowing the boy would be troubled leaving empty-handed. "Unfortunately, our basket of treats remains empty."

"You're telling m—!" Duo was cut off as a yellow beam hit Deathscythe's cloak. The beam splashed against the cloak harmlessly and dispersed into evanescent yellow particles.

He detected a sudden heat source on his right! Heavyarms dodged the beam, pulling up just to see twelve blue streaks soar around him, agile like quick canvas strikes, swishing and flicking at a moment's turn, trailing tails of blue fire. He zoomed in on them noting their features that looked, remarkably, like Virgo IIs. They were of a sleeker design, turquoise, with trim of red along the undersides of the chests, bottom feet, and head frames. In their right hands, gray mega beam cannons were integrated at the elbow, and were aimed at them! The head was a curved cone; its rectangular purple camera glowed odiously, and the shoulders, just like its predecessor, were overly large, and held one circular disc -Planet Defensors -its electromagnetic shields.

Trowa theorized that having only two Planets Defensors must have made it arguably stronger. The Virgo IIs had eight Planet Defensors for defense compared to this new successor. If these new models, Virgo IIIs, he aptly named, had the same weaknesses as the older models, then repeated attacks decreased the strength of their shields. Close combat, also, proved effective, for the mobile dolls lacked originality and could not compute data fast enough at close proximity. He would need to make sure his hits counted; he didn't have infinite bullets and missiles or a supply ship to replenish his arms.

However, if the Virgo IIIs had the same strengths, if not greater than their predecessor, then he would need to rely on his piloting skills and Heavyarms's speed. Heavyarms, like any mobile suit constructed of Gundanium, was durable against beam weaponry. Repeated attacks wore down Gundanium, and higher power settings, for beams, especially from Virgos and Tauri could permanently damage or disintegrate Gundanium. Heavyarms's newest incarnation wasn't afforded the privilege of a shield or reinforced Gundanium plating. The mobile suit had sacrificed defense for an all-out offense.

"Virgos?" Duo shouted. His face turned apprehensive. "You're telling me Dekim has been making Virgos?! For the love of – damn it! And I thought he couldn't get lower."

Trowa watched the suits approach. They moved in mechanical unison that eerily reminded him of Dothory Catalonia's tactical approach of giving AI spirit, a more human character to a soulless machine. "Dekim has never been a man who would let resources go to waste. He takes all the advantages he can get."

"More attuned and customized versions. He's created more soulless machines that resemble his heart. Shows that he's been waiting for us," Wufei added. The thought of facing a tough opponent changed his dark expression to one of determination. Knowing Wufei, facing conflict head-on was his way to fight.

"Here they come!" shouted Wufei.

"Let's hurry this up!" urged Quatre.

"Then let's send them to where they belong – to hell!" Duo cried.

Trowa accelerated toward the first one and used Heavyarms's left Gatling gun to fire a storm of bullets. He knew the bullets wouldn't amount to much, but they would insure distance from his enemy. The machine reacted quicker than he expected, quicker than the Virgo IIs, and dodged in a gush of blue light. Trowa powered his engines as they surrounded him, firing yellow streaks of light. Heavyarms surged upward, the yellow beams hounding the Gundam, the light, briefly, reflecting off his suit as they missed. An alarm blared on his left screen alerted Trowa to an incoming machine at his nine.

The mobile doll barreled at Trowa, its cannon pumping dangerous yellow beams. Another alarm signal went off from his rear and to his front, as they tried to box him. Trowa, flipping a switch, brought Heavyarms's right Gatling gun into its right manipulator. He aimed and the Gatlings roared at the two on his right and in front, however, the shells impact was lessened by the mobile dolls' Planet Defensors, their magnetic defense rendering the shells useless. The three broke off, two banking to the left and one to the right, respectively. Trowa maneuvered Heavyarms down, dodging a yellow beam from his rear. He then opened Heavyarms's missile containers on its shoulders, unleashing a salvo at the one on his flank. Caught off guard, the missiles obliterated the machine.

Trowa saw in the distance Duo slice into one, bifurcating it at the waist. Duo wasted no time tackling the next one. His mobile suit was very capable for such battles. Deathscythe had a mechanism called Hyper Jammers that scrambled cameras and enemy radars. The mobile dolls were having a hard time calculating his movements when Duo engaged them in close-quarter combat.

Wufei was a white blur on the battlefield. He was an extension of his Gundam, and where he attacked, it was in an instant. Nataku's yinyuedao, when the retractable bow attached to a blade, stabbed into one Virgo's chest. He brought the weapon up, the blade slicing into the Virgo's body and through the head. He charged after two more in the distance, flashes of blue and yellow illuminating the black backdrop of space, as they clashed ferociously.

Quatre was moving closer, though, unfortunately for him, the dolls seemed to anticipate his moves, distancing themselves away from Sandrock's shotels. Then, coming to Quatre's aid, Duo cornered a mobile doll. The doll evaded his side swing, boosting upwards. Quatre closed off its exit, and slashed into the suit, destroying the frame. He barely had enough time to dodge a roaring yellow beam that came close to Sandrock's cockpit.

Duo jettisoned to the Virgo, raising Deathscythe's left arm up, its buster chain shield blasted from its forearm. The Gundanium blade appeared from the tip of the shield, driving with directed rage from the shield's two rear wings which were now erect, controlling the direction. The Virgo did not have time to dodge, and as a result, its chest was penetrated. Duo retracted the chain and the machine exploded.

Returning his attention to his enemies, Trowa needed a plan to diminish their numbers. He contacted Duo. "Duo, I'll lure them after me. Flank them," Trowa ordered.

"You got it," Duo returned. "You don't mind being on your own for a bit, Quatre?"

"Go and help Trowa. Fighting with bullets like his won't last. I'll be fine. Besides Wufei and I can finish these lasts one up by ourselves."

"Roger that, man!"

Trowa had no time to relax, barely missing another spam of yellow beams. _Bzzz!_ they screamed together. He accelerated closer to the red planet, three Virgos relentlessly pursuing him – one from below, the other left of him, planet side, and one from above - firing consecutively a torrent of yellow beams.

He flew over the planet feeling the pull of Mars's gravity. The three followed after him twirling like spirals. He released Heavyarms's leg missiles in conjunction with his Gatling guns. One was caught in the onslaught and destroyed, while another's beam cannon exploded, and one increased its altitude, using its shield to endure the missiles and shells. The last two continued after him, the armless one grabbing him around its waist, and bringing him down to the planet's gravity.

Trowa used Heavyarms's machine cannons and mutilated the Virgo. He was caught off-guard when the last Virgo appeared before him, a pink beam saber in hand. It was too close for Trowa to fully dodge. As the saber neared Heavyarms's chest, the Virgos arms were sliced from the elbow up, and the double scythe cleaved it in two from the shoulder to the waist. Trowa's monitors glowed bright yellow and his cockpit shook from shockwave of the resulting explosion.

He breathed a sigh, gratefully looking upon the form of Deathscythe. "Thanks, Duo."

Duo chuckled. "Not a problem, buddy. Those machines were incredibly tactical. Dekim's using new strategic programs?"

"They weren't just tactical, their whole bodies were upgraded. I'm feeling a strange uneasiness."

"I feel it too, Trowa," Quatre said, congregating to them. Sandrock's shotels were now on its backpack. "This was preplanned. The mobile dolls had to have known we'd be approaching. They probably had timed programming or sensors that alerted them to incoming vessels. We were careless."

"This just –!" Duo let out an exasperated sigh. "Damn it! We were played!" He punched his hand. "And at the worst time."

"It goes to show how much he fears us." Wufei appeared with Altron. Its staff had retracted and was on its back skirt.

"We still have time. Let's get out of Mars's gravity, and then we can regroup and rendezvous with -!" Trowa paused suddenly, his mouth opening in a silent cry, watching a thick red light strike his machine. His monitors exploded with red light, flooding his cockpit. The light was blinding. He let out another cry and covered his eyes. His eyes burned and he could feel tears well. After a moment he opened his eyes. Black spots clamored in his vision, intermittently appearing then vanishing like blinking lights. When the spots had gone, he checked the cockpit.

Trowa was left in pitch blackness and a horrible silence of something that had gone terribly wrong. His monitors and operating system were off! And all too suddenly, he felt Heavyarms jerk and then the sensation of falling, as he was rammed against the back of his chair. Trowa panicked, trying to switch on Heavyarms but the system would not reboot! Fear rose in him as Heavyarms descended into Mars's atmosphere. The cockpit joggled him this way and that; the turbulent vibrations were like an earthquake as it rattled the cockpit, the pressure restricting him to the back of his seat. He gripped his controls wishing desperately for the machine to reactivate and grant him safety.

 _Catherine_ , Trowa thought bitterly. He couldn't keep his promise to her. He hoped she understood though, Trowa knew she wouldn't, and that made him feel all the worst. His death would break her heart. He could already see her in his mind's eye, inconsolable and her cries, cries that will wail into the night for years, piercing his heart. He closed his eyes, awaiting his end. Plummeting from such a height, he would surely die on impact. Instantly. The end would be as sudden as falling asleep.

"So this is the end," Trowa whispered to the darkness of his cockpit, his tone tinged in regret yet acknowledging his circumstance. He would always try until the end; and when the end came, when all futility ceased, he would resign himself to death's embrace. He looked into his cockpit where only darkness answered him. It would soon be his eternal coffin.

 _Quatre. Duo. Wufei_. They would die with Trowa. All their dreams, the Earth's and the Colonies', disintegrated, forever and ever. At least, Trowa thought, he wouldn't die alone. A morbid thought, and yet, he was comforted by such thinking. It didn't make him less afraid, but Trowa gained an inevitable resolution.

However, miraculously, as if Heavyarms refused give up, the cockpit restarted and Trowa's screens blinked and shined into existence. His monitors, at once, displayed the wispy cirrus clouds of Mars's thin atmosphere.

Relief flooded him. He stared in awe at his monitors, and then smiled. "You continue to surprise me, Heavyarms. You're always telling me to never give up to the very end," Trowa remarked to the animated cockpit. "According to you, my time hasn't run out just yet."

He and his friends' impending deaths vanished from his mind. Clarity came. His body relaxed, and he focused on the outside world. Trowa realized he was falling through the clouds, into Mars's north-western hemisphere, to the surface of the rising red jagged mountain ridges ravaging the landscape of the Kaisei Valley and the opening of the Chyrse Planitea, and… civilization?

Trowa froze at the thought.

The thought had to be wrong! Civilization shouldn't be possible! He had studied space, the planets, had seen thousands of pictures of the red planet's barren surface. Life shouldn't have been possible, at least, as he knew, at this moment.

He knew neither the Earth nor the space colonies had started terraforming the planet yet. He suspected Vice Foreign Minister Darlian was in talks with the president of the ESUN, from what little tidbits he had gathered from Heero earlier in the year, of terraforming Mars for human habitation. A consensus however, had not been reached.

This was a startling development. His monitors showed urbanized cities and lights sparkling inside great, yawning canyons. It wasn't isolated – many lights were spread across the red crust, the product of industrialized cities utilizing electricity for energy. They burned like fires in the dark. Someone had created civilization, had tamed Mars's carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere, for human (or alien) habitation.

Trowa looked back into the sky. He was falling in what seemed to be the early hours, the sunlight cutting through nighttime sky like a sword, and dark tendrils of smoke rising from the ground, and the sparks of explosions painting the sky in ominous black clouds, the apparent signs of a battle. His alarm blared, and his monitors zeroed in on Deathscythe, Altron and Sandrock falling beside him.

Duo appeared on his monitors, a little frazzled than normal. He looked clearly taken aback but relieved nonetheless. Quatre also appeared relieved, his shoulders drooping from their heightened state of stress. The brief ordeal had nearly claimed their lives. Wufei came next, his mouth a thin line and his brows furrowed.

"Thank goodness!" Duo started brightly. "I thought I was gonna kick the bucket for good and be claimed by the Gods of Death. When my system turned off, I thought that was the end. Instead, the Gods of Death are just laughing at me again. What in the hell happened?!"

"I suspect it was solar flare," Wufei said. "The flare took out our systems. It seems like fate was conspiring to end us but our Gundams refused to play along."

A solar flare? Where had he heard that before? Surprise, briefly, shone in his eyes. The news anchor had reported of abnormal eruptions from the sun while he was at the Stardust hotel. Trowa silently cursed himself for his shortsightedness.

"What grimy luck we're having today," Duo moaned, and Trowa couldn't help but agree. Duo shook his head, a small smile gracing his lips, though, suddenly, it turned into a sober frown as he turned his attention to Mars. The familiar look of battle called to his face. "You see what I'm seeing down there?!"

Trowa nodded, Quatre wore a frown, and Wufei had a look of contemplation. A foreboding silence and tension, one of uncertainty, rose around them.

"What ya wanna do?" Duo watched his comrade's reactions, his eyebrow raised in question and his head cocked to the side.

The question was left hanging in the air. To touch it was to invite a dangerous and unneeded problem on their hands. However, to do nothing still invited the problem. Trowa didn't doubt amid whatever situation among the combatants, they would sense their approach. It was hard for one not to notice on their screens four mobile suits descending with the rise of the sun. The question he mulled over was their position when they interfered in the battle.

"With the rate were falling, Duo, collision into this confrontation is unavoidable," Trowa replied, deducing the velocity of their descent and the numerous machines waging destruction. "They've probably picked us on their sensors by now."

Wufei frowned. "If it comes to that, we'll put an end to their aggression. As amazed as I am, if they goad Nataku into fighting, or try to provoke a reaction, I'm not going sit by and watch."

"Really now? Unavoidable you say?" Duo looked at Trowa, his gaze clearly showing his disapproval – but he shrugged it away. "Well, whatever. We'll do what we have to and limit casualties if possible, though, judging by the destruction, that's gonna be impossible. I'm reading eight mobile suits below. I'll land behind the base, south of your position. I'm hoping they'll let us leave, but knowing our luck we're in for some trouble. Sheesh! One thing after another. I'm going to have to take another extended vacation after this. Maybe go to the moon. I think that will cancel my bad luck. What a nightmare!"

"Are we really going to do this? I know there's no avoiding the situation, Duo, Trowa and Wufei, but we shouldn't proceed into a direct confrontation unless provoked," Quatre argued. "This isn't our dispute."

"I agree, Quatre. If possible we should avoid violent disputes like these, but, as of right now, we're not that fortunate." A nightmare indeed, Trowa thought mockingly. Quatre's subtle scrunching of his cheeks revealed his reservation.

"They might suspect us, perhaps, as reinforcements or an outside force. We can't assume they'll let us go without asking some intrusive questions. Let's prepare for our descent. Ready yourself for combat and remember to recalculate and recalibrate your balancers and weapons for Mars's gravity," Trowa ordered.

Duo threw a smirk at him – and in the same motion Deathscythe waved – and flew past him. Deathscythe opened its cloak, and sprung its enormous bat-like wings, revealing the suits skeletally-designed frame. As Sandrock and Heavyarms continued to fall, Deathscythe remained in the sky; its engines were powerful enough to sustain atmospheric flight.

Wufei snorted, but seemed to acknowledge Trowa taking command, as of now. No one ordered Wufei unless the cause was beneficial to the destruction or defeat of his enemy. Quatre gave a heavy sigh. He moved Sandrock to Heavyarms's right.

Trowa adjusted Heavyarms, using its verniers to ease his velocity. Heavyarms's boosters rumbled to a start and he hovered. Compared to the other Gundams with flight equipment (Wing Zero and Deathscythe Hell and Altron) Heavyarms was meant for ground operations (and space once configured). Flight wasn't its specialty; it required modified aerial equipment for that necessity. The suit had great propulsion power however; its speed advantage was used for quick bursts to catch enemies off-guard.

Descending, he noticed three mobile suits lined up, firing, at a base atop a large red hill. Two more surrounded its east and west points, and another three its south point. The depictions of the mobile suits were of a make Trowa had never seen before. Their design slightly resembled a less robust OZ-06MS Leo suit, a more utilitarian and sleek model. He scanned the suits, seeing if a reference would be in Heavyarms's database. No such luck. He switched to the Search Eye sensors to analyze the machines where the cameras could not.

An outline of their frame popped open on his central monitor. They were 17.8 meters, a full meter over Heavyarms. Their frames were encased and protected in green, boxy armor. The suits had a trapezoid-like head that was rounded at the top, framing their yellow cubed cameras. From the head, the chest frame boldly and sharply protruded outward but was sleek as it transitioned to the pelvic region where two hydraulic cables extended outward, connecting the upper body to the lower body. A curved, metal, spinal column stabilized the body by connecting from the upper body to the pelvic. The suits had side skirts, the legs were covered in armor till it stopped at their heeled-feet. Retractable thrusters were located behind the calves.

The first two, on the frontline, carried an axe in their left manipulators and GR-W01 120mm rifles in their right, Heavyarms's identified, except the last one in the row, on the left. That suit held a rectangular shield its right forearm. The invading suits stood stock-still, awaiting the incoming Gundams' descent.

Heavyarms met the red ground with a bang, skidding across the surface and throwing up chunks of rocks and red dust. Sandrock came roaring from behind; Altron landed to Trowa's nine, facing a lone opponent; and Deathscythe settled behind the base, landing gently on the surface between the base and the three foreign mobile suits. The battle had stopped abruptly, the combatants looked baffled over the interference of four new mobile suits.

At the time of confusion, Trowa used his screen and zoomed in on the combatants. Besides the new mobile suits, behind him tank-like machines retreated up the hill to the base in a desperate attempt to flee the mobile suits. Traveling to the ridges on the far left, tanks in gleaming crimson were withdrawing from their positions. The ones climbing the hill had beige, robust, metal bodies with two wheeled-legs at the front and a third in the rear. They stood at 3.5 meters and contained either two eight-tube missile pods or 30mm machine guns on their flanks. Some tanks were a pile of smoldering refuse, spread across the red barren land.

Shirtless children that looked his age and even younger were atop the hill watching him and Quatre with wary expressions, their faces destitute of hope, some terrified – and this fright came from the unexpected: they were at a loss of what to do, beset by an overwhelming force sent to murder them on all fronts. They were at a loss of their course of action as four new combatants entered the fray. They worried whether the four Gundam suits were friend or foe, on a battlefield, that Trowa concluded, was not in their favor: burning and smoking detritus were strewn along the hill's ravaged and desiccated slopes, children exhausted from battle, bloody and dirty, looked upon them in awe and fear – for their fear could be justified if Trowa, Wufei and Duo became their enemies: They would be massacred. Quatre would be conflicted, and he would, in the end, resolve himself to exit the battlefield, if he could. He was too kind. However, forced into an inevitable fight Trowa was sure Quatre would defend himself most bravely.

Desperation spoke on the children's faces. They fought a losing battle against mechanical giants that could, with a swing of their axe, a stomp from their foot, or shot from their rifle, annihilate them in an instant. They were insignificant compared to the might of mobile suits, mere playthings for their amusement. Their statures were imposing when looking up as they towered over their small bodies like spires, their shadows enveloping the children as if death found new souls take in the oncoming onslaught.

Atop the hill, at the command base, a lone tank sat overlooking the battlefield, separated from its comrades a few meters below the crest. Above the tank's hatch, a young woman around his age surveyed the battlefield before her, her yellow eyes hard like steel. She was shirtless, revealing glistening brown skin, her breasts were bound in a black tank top, a red scarf snuggled against her neck, her spiky lilac hair was in a Mohawk that curled around her bare shoulders, and a long dangling bang curving like a fang hung over her eyes.

She yelled into her radio headset, looking between the base and to the four Gundams behind and in front of her. The youth's yellow eyes tightened in duress, sweat glistened from her brow, and a scowl that resembled a trapped beast spread across her face. Trowa turned the volume higher to hear the girl's voice.

"Biscuit! We need Mikazuki, now!" her rough voice commanded. "The odds seemed to be out of our favor and..." glancing quickly from front to back, she then glared at the four Gundams – "there are four new mobile suits here! It's twelve to one now."

She put her hand to her ear, looking between the combatants. Whatever she was hearing on the radio, her expression became more confused as her mouth slightly fell open. She then growled, "What do you mean you can't confirm them?! What? I see them here unless… they don't have Ahab reactors?! That should be impossible. No mobile suit can operate without Ahab waves and reactors! Damn it! We need Mikazuki! _We_ can't die here! _I_ won't die here!"

Duo popped on his screen, his expression darker than Trowa had seen in a while – darker than his God of Death persona. "You seein' what I'm seein'? Kids against an army; doesn't that bring back joyful memories?"

"Whether kids or not, is semantics. Right now they're soldiers defending their base. Is that a surprise?"

"Like hell it is. But does that make it okay for what you're seeing?" Duo brought his hands up, shrugging, a smile creeping on his face. It held no humor. In fact, it was more a ghost smile of something haunted, a memory, Trowa perceived, of something locked away, masked, like the many facades he and Heero wore.

"But can we really leave things like this," Quatre wondered worriedly, his voice echoing through his cockpit on an audio frequency. "I've might have misspoken if I didn't see who was on the battlefield. This isn't right... It's not."

Wufei hummed, his dark eyes transfixed on the battlefield. "It's total annihilation. This amount of force to suppress a lone base and these tanks… There's more to this than we thought. Something unjust is at hand."

"I guess I wasn't the only one who was thinking the same. _No_ , Quatre, we can't. But this is fine by me. For old time's sake, let's show them what a _Gundam_ can do. I really don't wanna regret this if things go south." Duo exited out.

The mobile suits, too, stopped their war to assess Trowa and his comrades. They brought their rifles to bear as a tremendous silence, bordering on anticipation and nerves, violence and catastrophe, struck the air. A steady wind came, sweeping red dust and smoke, and it howled in a fury. The suits withstood the wind, the furious howl, in predatory silence, waiting for the moment to escalate tension. The green mobile suits opened their heads, revealing spherical yellow sensors mounted inside, and then closed them with a snap.

"Long distance sensors?" Trowa murmured.

A conceited and grandiloquent male voice, swimming in condescension, echoed on the battlefield as if a noble had arrived among peasants, declaring his status to besmirch their own, from the speaker system of one of the mobile suits. The speaker's suit thrust its axe towards Heavyarms and Sandrock as if to precipitate a fight. This one bore a horn on its trapezoid head compared to the rest, and its undisguised contempt or disgust was blatantly obvious for all to see.

"Who are you to interrupt my beautiful battlefield?! Reinforcements? Interlopers? Reconnaissance did not report any mobile suit activity, yet. I'll be sure to stipend their pay. Incompetence, incompetence, incompetence!" the man said distastefully. "Even so," the voice chortled arrogantly, "four mobile suits are no threat to the likes of Gjallarhorn's military might."

A gruff and measured voice spoke next, from the mobile suit on the far left. "We should retreat, Commander Orliss, and regroup with the mobile worker divi–!"

"Silence! Lt. Crank, you are not in command of this operation. I will not have you commandeering my position. Commander Coral did not give you authority, did he now? You – all – will follow my directives! Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Commander Orliss," the man, Lt. Crank, capitulated grudgingly.

"Good. We'll attack!" he then laughed. "I'm going to destroy you and everything here! I'll make sure you remember my name in your last moments! Orliss Stenja, Gjallarhorn's commander, whom eradicated this filthy rebellion!"

In an explosive burst, the middle mobile suit charged towards Heavyarms, jumping, raising its axe and, like a guillotine slowly descending on its victim, thrusted it downward as a call rang out - "Commander Orliss, don't!"

Trowa opened Heavyarms's chest, revealing four Gatling guns, pressed the trigger, and drilled the machine, the bullets screaming into the suit. The sound was like thunder clapping when the bullets struck metal, a booming cacophony of clanking metal that pierced the air in thunderous pings. At first the bullets fazed off the machine, but as it came closer the suit's paint started chipping on its chest, exposing grey metal, and then large impact dents made way, freezing the suit in midair as if surprised it was affected by physical shells. Numerous rounds pounded the cockpit and chest and its left arm. Soon the axe and rifle tumbled out of its manipulators, the arms convulsed from the trauma inflicted from the pilot's spasms on the controls, and the right arm, hit in the exposed region between its metal coverings, tore the arm off. The mobile suit crashed to the ground, smoke rising from its perforated body.

Their armor was denser than Trowa expected. His concentrated bullets pierced the frame, ripping away its arm but most of the machine was still intact. Enormous dents and holes riddled the prone machine, removing some kind of paint that prevented physical ballistics at first. Whatever the suit was composed of, it knew how to take multiple hits until it was crippled. He would need to pierce their exposed joints for a better efficacious outcome.

"LT. ORLISS!" cried the men of Gjallarhorn.

"First division, I'm taking command! Zan, Tim, rendezvous with me and Ein. Ein, distance yourself!" Lt. Crank commanded, as the machines' spread out in a gust of speed, whipping up a cloud of red dust.

"No, I'm avenging Orliss! I'm taking them down!" a man called, driving his machine up the hill to the base.

"Zan!" shouted the enemy fighters.

As the mobile suit launched toward the tower, its axe glinting dangerously from the sun as it fell, the hill erupted! An explosion of red dust swirled around the base, and a massive shadow writhed inside as demonic green eyes glared through the dust storm.

A loud metal thud wrung in the air, like large pieces of metal hitting each other, screeching horribly. The attacking mobile suit was launched backwards, the cockpit smashed, blood gushing out from the cracks as it hit the Martian soil in a heap. The swirling dust dissipated, revealing a metal silhouette that made Trowa blanch.

"A Gundam," he said softly.

He had never thought he would arrive on Mars, but to see a Gundam, in front of his eyes, was groundbreaking. Trowa felt he was in some kind of alternate dimension. Humans on Mars? Oxygenated air? New mobile suits? And a Gundam? Nothing he knew, that he could decisively conclude, from all the knowledge he had accumulated over the years, made sense. Trowa was at a lost.

"And it doesn't look too friendly," Quatre's voice rang in his cockpit. Sandrock brought its heat shotels to bear, placing itself in front of Trowa defensively.

The machine turned its head toward Heavyarms and Sandrock, its green eyes flashing and burning, ominously. Its large golden overhanging crest bedazzled by the rising sun, hung like a heavy crown. The chest was painted in blue, gold trim on the chest vents followed by a mostly white scheme. It had the same appearance as the strange green mobile suits: it seemed, aesthetically wise, to have missing obliquus as two cables attached to the thin waist. The machine's pelvic was wide, its crotch surrounded by two short side skirts; the legs were thin, until it reached the knee caps, where it was shrouded in white armor, with red markings of a vertical red line inside a pentagon. The feet looked like heeled-paws, with two nails protruding on each foot. The shoulders were bare, displaying the machine's vulnerable exoskeleton; the left forearm had a blue bulky gauntlet; the right was white and plain. A white, large, thruster backpack was attached to its back.

The Gundam gripped a massive black mace with spiky tips. The mace was as large as its body and shined a lustrous black as it was held high above its head, blocking the newly awakened sun, yet the light illuminated the weapon, its outline glowing a dark red. The weapon called for blood, and the machine looked eager to answer its call.

"Mika!" the lilac-haired girl shouted over the base's speaker system, her eyes wide and astonished, but also relieved, seeing the Gundam decimate its enemy. "Never mind them! Focus your attention on Gjallarhorn!"

"Understood," answered a boy's soft voice. "Keep everyone back." The machine roared, its thrusters booming in an explosive burst, shot straight toward the retreating tank division, leaving a plume of red dust in its wake. Using its long mace like a golf club, the suit cleaved through the machines. The mace tore through the metal tanks, tearing them apart as fragments and bodies, with incredible force, took to the sky, then impacted Martian soil in loud crashes. The result was bloody smears staining the ground as if to mix with the red soil, an offering to Aries in attempt to please the war god, and ruined metal lay astray in newly half-hazard memorials, jutting in disarray.

"So you've not yet declared us an enemy," Trowa said thoughtfully. His alarm blared at incoming fire from the enemy suits. The bullets reflected off Gundanium harmlessly. Trowa brought his Gatling guns to bear and fired, the fusillades thundering at the roving green units.

"Let's pay them back for attacking, eh?" Wufei called, smirking in anticipation.

"I guess we have no choice in the matter. Let's do this, Trowa," Quatre called.

"Right, Quatre!"

The time of battle had commenced!

XXX

 **An** : That's that. Expect sporadic updates, sometime in late November or earlier December. I've already made a significant dent in the second chapter and I like to make more headway in chapter three before I post again. See ya next time!


	2. Chapter 2: The Martian Conundrum

**AN** : Finished. I might reedit this in the near future and cut the chapter in half just for brevity, because even I needed a break. This took longer than I expected, but to those who waited, here it is. It will follow the storyline, but I'll be expanding the world more next chapter. Does anyone know the real ages of Gaelio and McGillis and Carta? Also: The PD character timeline is really weird and it is doesn't make a lot of sense. Am I supposed to believe Kudelia was seven years old (314 PD), in college, giving a revolutionary speech on child poverty and Martian independence when she looked like she was 14 or 15?

Anywho, please enjoy.

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own any rights to the Gundam Franchise (Gundam Wing and Iron-Blooded Orphans).

* * *

Duo chuckled lowly, thrumming his fingers incessantly on his joystick, impatiently and eagerly, awaiting his foes first move. He watched the three new mobile suits on his monitors aim their black rifles at his suit, the threat apparent, and their foolishness about to leap to new heights – towards their destruction. They were cautious, which was good; temerity and overconfidence insured one's death on the battlefield. Every action had a consequence, and the wrong move or tactic could prove fatal. However, Duo was in no mood for dallying. His aggravation for his new foes, compounded by being tricked by Dekim and his plans going awry, only exacerbated his growing discontent. Duo needed a scapegoat, and if these fools did not retreat, he was going to blame his discontent on them, violently and destructively leaving their bifurcated limbs and broken bodies across the battlefield.

Duo leaned forward and flipped his speaker system on; he wanted to broadcast his message to his challengers, who seemed to thirst for war, if what he had heard from the sounds of the battlefield behind him meant. "You know what? I'm having a horrible day, so which one of you idiots wanna attack first. I'm rarin' to go! But you should be warned: - Once you attack, you're gonna die, so I'd retreat if I were you, save yourself some grief. It'd be the smartest thing you'd do all day."

"A child's voice? A _child's_ voice?" echoed in dismay a male voice that came from the suit on the left. He seemed to take Duo's warning as an insult. "I should have known. Such impudence from space rats like you!" the male voice bellowed. The man's anger and contempt grew with each word. "Vermin like you deserve the sword from the honorable Gjallarhorn. You're a growing pestilence that needs to be eradicated, you useless, breeding Martian animals."

"Is that so?" Duo's eyes hardened like steel. "Space rats," he had thought he would never hear such words again. The last he heard it, the last time he felt the burning emotion of rage course through him, it had been on Colony V08744. It wasn't a pleasant experience for the boy, and to remember it, to be called by something inhumane, unleashed a buried fury he had kept sealed. Duo gripped his controls in silent anger. His enemies' reckoning had begun, and in the name of the God of Death, he would devour their souls.

"Lieutenants Jacen, Ezra, cover me! I'm taking this space rat head on!" ordered the man.

A red wind of dust swept the landscape as the mobile suit's thrusters activated. The green mobile suit, axe in hand, charged forward. The suit's explosive start took Duo by surprise as the suit moved across the landscape as if it was gliding on ice, kicking up red dust in the process like a hurdling dust storm. The suit was fast!

 _A whole lot faster than those pathetic Leos!_ Duo thought, his eyes falling the winding movement of the approaching green suit.

The flanking suits provided cover fire, their rounds drilling into Deathscythe Hell's body. The shells clanged against Deathscythe's dense armor, ricocheting in yellow sparks onto the ground, leaving jagged scars from their impacts. Projectiles from firearms were useless against Gundanium. Gundamium alloy was one of the densest, manmade metals and, certainly, one of the most expensive metals to refine and create. There was no way there ballistic weapons could penetrate his armor easily. However, Duo still had he to be on guard. Their axes and other blunt weapons, if made from alloys as dense as Gundanium, could prove troublesome to Deathscythe. Since Gundanium was manmade and only created in space, the price was absolutely expensive to repair, and he didn't have a unit of technicians like he did on the Peacemillion and Howard's Barge to fix up any damages. Duo needed to play it smart and end the fight quickly.

"What in the…? Be careful, comrades! Its armor is dense," called the suit firing on the right, its rifle unloading with abandon as if the volume of bullets could penetrate Deathscythe.

"Take this!" the incoming suit roared finally reaching Duo, mightily swinging its axe at Deathscythe's head.

Duo blocked the strike with the buster shield and moving forward, he brought the scythe from Deathscythe's back skirt and poising it in the air, with a triumphant downward strike, ripped through the head, and cleaved its way down, tearing through metal innards till it reached passed the cockpit of his enemy. The mutilated suit collapsed to the ground, oil like blood languidly pooling on desiccated red.

"ANDERS?!" the remaining suits chorused together.

Deathscythe extended its dual scythe to full capacity, its curved blades gleaming, and oil dripping off the tips of its fangs in wanton, violent lust. Deathscythe's eyes smoldered green. The deadly suit stood at full height, its black wings unfolded like a monster from the shadows, and the machine, yearning for bloodshed, stepped forward.

"Nice try. Now it's my turn!" Duo accelerated Deathscythe in a burst of blue. Enemy shells ricocheted off its body, clinking like raining pebbles. The suit became an unstoppable force as it rammed against the green suit in the middle, dragging it along the red surface. The green suit stuck to Deathscythe's pole like glue, unable to escape, unable to move, except helplessly forward in Deathscythe's destination. Deathscythe came to a stop. The enemy machine lay powerlessly on the ground, its armor cracked and smoking, staring into Deathscythe's powerful green eyes. Deathscythe's left foot stomped on the chest and remained planted, holding the suit in place. Soon the scythe descended on its trapped prey, the pilot's fearful screams, and his futile cries of terror – "No! No! Please!" - made its way onto the radio channels while the suit was cleaved in two. The man's final scream came, then eerie, pregnant silence.

"Ezra! You monster!" The last green suit charged Duo, tossing its rifle to better grip the handle on its axe. The man should have given up after seeing his comrades' fates. His new enemies weren't too bright; Duo held no reservations.

The suit slashed at the head. Deathscythe met the axe with its scythe, a sharp clang resounded from the strike, eliciting a small shower of golden sparks. The mobile suit skated away then charged, sidestepping to the outside. Duo moved Deathscythe around the swing, using its Vulcans to shoot at the rectangular head camera. The camera shattered to pieces. Seeing the mobile suit freeze, Duo seized his opportunity, appearing behind the green suit and bifurcated it at its thin waist. The upper body fell first and then the lower body froze briefly, still upright, as if it hadn't realized it had been separated, soon collapsed to the ground.

The suit's cockpit from inside the chest rose. The red-haired Gjallarhorn pilot tumbled out of it, his head bleeding profusely from a cut. He stood up, his arms and hands raised in grudging surrender. Duo looked at him, a man in his late twenties wearing an unrecognizable uniform. He was just a man; no more, no less, and as fragile and finite as any other lifeform, filled with emotions and guts, dreams and history. The man looked up at Deathscythe, grimacing, stubborn to his fate. Duo's face became grim, and Deathscythe mirrored its pilot's heart, its green eyes glowing threateningly. The man took a step backward and started to turn. There would be no escape. The head Vulcans erupted and the pilot was no more than a mist of red and scattered remains.

"Say hello to the God of Death," Duo whispered to the ruins of his foes.

"Well. That wasn't much of a challenge." Duo sighed. He thought they would fare better and provide a more rigorous challenge than the mobile dolls; humans did have capabilities to exceed the limits of AI. However, his opponents seemed inexperienced in mobile suit combat. Or, Duo thought offhandedly, they've never experienced an opponent that they could not beat. But who was he to say as facing a Gundam pilot meant facing death. To encounter a Gundam, and to come out alive, was slim at best. And to face him, he reckoned their chances were never too good to start with. Duo was happy he did not have to expend more energy; otherwise he'd be in trouble.

Duo turned his cameras to the battle behind him. "Better go help out others. They just might need it."

Duo turned Deathscythe around, noting the swirl of red dust and thundering tempos and staccatos of guns and their whizzing, relentless bullets echo behind the hill in a tempest of chaos and violence. The battle had intensified.

* * *

"Damn it! Lt. Crank, I can't get close!" yelled Ein Dalton, dodging another storm of bullets unleashed by the mysterious blue mobile suit that had crashed into the battlefield. The bullets collided behind him, leaving small craters in their wake. The suit had killed Lt. Orliss before his eyes with its chest Gatling guns!

Ein couldn't believe it! It seemed inconceivable ballistic-styled weaponry could dent, or even mutilate, Nano-laminated armor, especially the Graze's green paint. Such a feat should have been impossible, should have deflected the shells, but… Lt. Orliss was dead! He had seen it! He had seen it and his very world shook. The culmination of all his training could not prepare Ein for this catastrophe.

And now First Lieutenants Tim Kit and Zan Nova were dead, too! The blow from the other unknown suit's glowing red shotels had slashed through Tim's Graze's armor in a burst of speed like a ghost had gone through him. The Graze had come apart instantly; the upper body sliced in an X. Ein could see Tim's blood spilling out from the cracks of the strayed cockpit like a leak in a dam, an unsealable leak that would continue to drain until there was nothing left. Lt. Zan was crushed to death; nothing could have survived that violent smash from the mobile suit with the mace to Zan's cockpit.

Ein did not want to imagine the states of Lt. Orliss's, Tim's and Zan's bodies. The thought made him want to vomit in his cockpit. It was pure revulsion, and swallowing those thoughts were hard for him to digest, for his comrades were just alive a few moments ago. Ein trembled at how quickly his comrades' had been killed. They were supposed to be one of the best, Gjallarhorn's Martian Branch elite mobile suit fighting corps, behind the massive and well-trained Outer Lunar Orbit Joint Fleet, and the audacious Jupiter-Ceres Security Forces. (Ein did not know the full strength of the Outer Earth Orbit Regulatory Joint Fleet, but he had heard rumors from visiting Gjallarhorn troops from Earth, that they were led by a Seven's Stars commander, Carta Issue. She was dynamic and over-the-top and seemed often hotheaded.)

This mission to capture Kudelia Aina Bernstein, the figurehead of Mars's independent movement, was supposed to be easy. Gjallarhorn had the advantage of men, mobile workers, and mobile suits. This mission, his first mission, entering real combat, was supposed to be, according to Lt. Crank, a rite of passage for him to grow and prove himself a soldier under Gjallarhorn's command; that a lowborn such as him could prevail, could move up the echelon of Gjallarhorn's hierarchy.

"War is a terrifying thing, Ein," Lieutenant Crank had said before the operation. "Once you enter you are never the same. When you are engaged with enemy, your training, your instincts, will automatically take over. Follow them. Let them guide you. It will keep you alive. Follow your orders. Remember you are not fighting for yourself, but for your brothers and sisters alongside of you, and, more importantly, for the Earth, and the dignity of Gjallarhorn. Gjallarhorn's duty is to protect the peace for the Earth at all cost, we are men of sacrifice, and our bodies will move when Gjallarhorn orders us so. Whether Martian or Earthling or Spacenoid, or _both_ , under the Earth, under Gjallarhorn, we are one people and we fight as one. We fight for victory!"

And yet… victory wasn't supposed to be their destruction! Victory was demonstrable! They were Gjallarhorn, the best of the best! Their losses weren't supposed to be so devastatingly tragic and fast.

From the briefing, Kudelia hired Chyrse Guard Security, a private military company, located in the barren region of the Chryse Planitia, to transport her to Earth. The PMC was said to contain only armored vehicles called mobile workers, separated into two groups - the First Corps and the Third Group. They were nothing special; just an above-average PMC. It was Gjallarhorn's duty, according to the mission specs, to stop her before she departed Mars and spread her vile propaganda to the Earth's Sphere.

Major Coral wanted no survivors; he wanted everything – people and machines and facilities – eviscerated from the red planet forever. Coral had seemed very adamant on fulfilling his objectives. He had said if they couldn't do it, then Kudelia's influence and her charisma could infect the Inner Sphere where rebellion and revolution against Gjallarhorn and the four Earth blocs would escalate into mass hysteria, and possibly into civil war. Coral seemed positive that this would occur, and it was their duty, at all possible, to stop Kudelia in her tracks.

Ein's division attacked at dawn. Their frontline mobile worker division would create an opening, weakening their forces through endurance and prolong bombardment. With the rising of the sun, Lt. Orliss had commanded the mobile suits to the battlefield. They had brought eight EB-06 Grazes, where only a three-man team would suffice. Ein thought it was too much for eight suits to subdue a single base, but he wouldn't dare question his commander's orders. Coral had deemed the logistics for this mission necessary, no loose stray ends to unravel the entire operation. It was Ein's first mission after all, and a good report on the field would help gain better rapport and recognition from his superiors.

When the golden dawn crested over the horizon, their call to action, it was supposed to be their triumphant moment – not their enemies! The report never stated the enemy would employ – or even had! – mobile suits! And reinforcements no doubt! Not one but four new suits! Four extraordinary powerful suits! Whoever had conducted intelligence had failed them. Their covert operation had become a nightmare. Even outnumbering the enemy, they still fell, like pawn pieces, to the might of these unforgiving and ruthless kings.

"Kings?" Ein contemplated to himself, feeling a shiver crawl up his spine. They were not just kings but -"More like demonic creatures," Ein whispered to himself.

Ein's cockpit shuddered violently, breaking him out of his reverie, and his left arm twisted with his controls. He cried from the strain when he felt a sharp shooting pain permeate through his arm. A red alarm blared and his left monitor of his Graze's frame highlighted, in blinking red, a damaged left shoulder. A stream of bullets had struck his Graze's left shoulder. He was lucky his machine's arm still had full functionality, but he was careless and it had nearly cost him. He gritted his teeth, retreating against the hellfire from his enemy. He needed cover, he was far too open; but the surrounding scenery left little to wish for.

Whoever was piloting the suit had extraordinary reaction times, as if the pilot could predict him! Ein was grateful for his Graze's thrusters for the much needed speed. A slower suit would have been demolished. This new heavy artillery suit was something else entirely. He struggled to keep his distance. He felt if he could endure its onslaught, it would be enough to empty its ammunition. He just needed to wait for the opportune moment to strike, but that moment may never come, for the realization dawned on Ein from his diminished endurance; fatigue was taking over.

Ein was sweating profusely. His short black hair was matted to his face; his underarms and back were completely drenched, soiling his uniform: a gray, white, and black single button-styled over the breast uniform with gold pipping outlining the shoulders, the standing collar, cuffs, and an emblem of the Seven Stars, Gjallarhorn's symbol, over his heart. He used his shoulder to wipe the sweat from his face.

"Keep moving, Ein! Don't let his targeting system get ahold of you! This opponent is -! Look out!" Lt. Crank yelled.

A blurring mobile suit of blue and gray with giant shotels armed in its hands dashed forward and sliced his Graze's left arm off, while the other shotel descended on him. Untamed electricity sparked and crackled in his cockpit, his left screen becoming static for a brief moment, Ein looked in fear, feeling his stomach plummet, his hands growing hot and wet on his throttles. Was this the end for him, too? He could see the oil glistening off the shotel from its previous victim bearing down on him in inevitable doom. It all came slowly as if time had stopped especially for Ein as he watched his last moments trickle into nothing.

Just as the weapon came, a loud clang stopped it in its tracks. Lt. Crank! Crank's Graze had blocked the strike with its axe! The Graze was struggling with the strength of the mobile suit, its arm groaning in protest and the ground underneath its feet cracking.

"Such strength!" Crank grunted on his audio channel. Ein watched its green eyes burn in fury of missing its prey. Such a sight, such a commanding and dominating presence, did not seem to be made by humans. This demon! THIS DEMON! Only demons were this powerful, this maleficent!

"What are you waiting for, Ein?!" Crank shouted. "Retreat! The remaining mobile worker division has safely left the combat zone. Protect them at all costs. We must protect the survivors!"

"But -!"

"All mobile suit units but us have been defeated! Now do as you're ordered, boy!" Crank commanded.

"Live!"

The new mobile suit side-swept Crank and then rammed its shoulder into Ein. The Graze fell to the ground. The momentum threw Ein's head back hard, slamming it against the cold metal walls of his cockpit. A shooting pain shot through his head. He opened his eyes, feeling the sensation of vertigo and also something wet trickle down his face besides his sweat. He unsteadily brought a black gloved hand to his face and found blood.

Ein's bloodstained hands feebly found his controls. He gripped them and breathed out, "I can do this. I can do this." His short mantra seemed to calm him down, and Ein felt himself regain control over his body and mind. He looked to his working screens. Crank was in front of him protectively. Crank grabbed a grenade from his side skirt and threw it at the mobile suit. The suit backed away instantly as the grenade roared its destructive force on the red soil.

"Let's see what you got!" roared the pilot of the green dragon-like demon as it neared them, hurtling out of the cloud of black smoke.

"Another child?" Crank called.

"If you only see me as a child, then obviously you're underestimating your opponent! For a soldier you should know better! That weakness is unacceptable! Now show me what you got!"

Crank and the green mobile suit clashed. Crank brought his axe only to meet the center of the polearm. The suits locked weapons in an attempt to overpower the other. Ein could see Crank's Graze buckle. In that instant, the green demon jumped and plunged its Dragon Fangs into Crank's head, breaking the head armor in one strike. The green suit followed up, bringing its yuyuendao up to Crank's chest. Crank barely blocked the weapon, the blade piercing through its left shoulder armor, where its aim was meant for the cockpit.

Startled Ein gripped his controls harder. He was about to accelerate when the weary face of Lt. Crank appeared on his monitor. Blood dripped from Crank's head and ran down his face, staining his uniform. Blood painted the Seven Stars emblem crimson.

Crank's expression then became angry. "What the hell are you waiting for, Ein?! I'm ordering you to get hell out of here!"

"But Lt. Crank! I can help y -!"

"Now!" Crank exclaimed vehemently, his outrage expression crumbling into a more resigned composure than Ein had ever seen of the man. Lt. Crank had always been a mountain to him, a pillar of insurmountable strength, loyalty, honor, duty, and an obstacle he wished to surpass with his Lt.'s approval. To see him resigned only made Ein more distraught. He knew, without a doubt, what this meant.

"These are my last orders. Survive, Ein. Survive." Crank withdrew another black spherical ball from the Graze's waist and pressed down. He threw the ball at Ein. Ein watched as a cloud of nano-mirror chaff mixed with purple smoke explode from the canister and enveloped the battlefield.

Ein grudgingly obeyed his superior, turning his machine around. "Yes sir!"

Ein accelerated away from the combatants. He smashed his right hand against his right monitor. Angry tears fell down his face. Rage and sadness washed over him. He gave a last lingering glance to Crank, knowing in his heart the man's fate was death, joining his comrades in the vaunted grounds of Valhalla, a soldier's afterlife. They had lost to cowards and brats! He felt a burning humiliation well within him. It was a fierce storm and crashed in black rage. He would avenge them, all of them. His pride as a Gjallarhorn soldier called for retribution. He would lay his life down to see these children's bodies burning in oceans of fire.

"Lt. Crank," Ein sobbed out one last time, looking on his monitors to the purple clouded battlefield.

* * *

Wufei felt the unknown suit pull away a distance inside the smoke. He had no trouble looking for the suit; his infrared sensors would detect it right away. Escaping from battle was nonexistent. He was the judge, and he controlled the fate of the battle.

Using his infrared sensors, Wufei encountered a problem. His sensors were glitching as static interfered in his transmissions. It had to be the purple smoke! _It could be chaff_ , Wufei posited, as chaff, when dispersed into the air, could obstruct radar.

 _A useful trick for cowards and cravens when fleeing_ , Wufei thought, as his dark eyes roamed through the purple smoke.

"How unexpected. But it'll take more than cheap parlor tricks to defeat me. Now where are you hiding?"

A moment passed and the smoke dispersed into the air. Wufei's monitors' returned to normal, revealing only one green silhouette. The green suit that he had crossed blades with did not retreat. Instead the suit stood before him in its temerity. Though damaged, its head unarmored and yellow camera cracked, its left arm managed to grip its axe. The suit desired to continue their duel. It brought its axe in front protectively.

The man was brave. Wufei respected courage, and this courage came from knowing death was at the door, and would soon come. He positioned his yuyuendao down, the blade pointing to the ground. He would meet this soldier's last moments. They stood in silence.

A roar came about, and the duelists looked to the appearance of the unknown Gundam enter the fray, standing behind the green suit, gripping its black mace in its manipulators. Before Wufei had attacked, he had watched the confrontation between this suit and the Gundam.

From what Wufei had seen, the new Gundam certainly held a monstrous power. In a one-on-one fight with the new commanding enemy unit, the Gundam exhibited an agility and movement of trained professionals. It was as if the pilot and machine moved as one singular entity. Each move was precise and fluid, showcasing an extraordinary reaction time that seemed at times inhuman, something abnormal to the rigidity of a mobile suit. The clash was short, but within that instant, he had learned enough.

The pilot was a brute. Neither elegance or mastery or a style of bravura was displayed in the heat of battle. The pilot, without concern for self, had little use of flair or self-preservation for that matter. It wanted to demolish any opponent as quickly as possible, and it did so with a reckless abandon without consequence to itself. The Gundam was barbaric and ruthless but efficient.

Wufei commended its brutality. He was never one to shy away from battle. In fact, he lived for it. The battlefield had become his life; he could not turn away. Seeing one who felt the same way only excited his warrior's blood.

The Gundam had fought the unknown mobile suit in a brief duel. They fought tirelessly and ruthlessly, trying to gain the advantage. The Gundam, in maneuverability, had the edge, but its opponent, making up for its lack of speed, had tactics and skill. It was a battle of experience versus brute strength.

The Gundam now glared at them. Its mace was pointed to the ground, its manipulator wrapped tightly around its handle, waiting. Wufei casually noted Heavyarms at the bottom of the hill with Sandrock to its right. He knew Trowa and Quatre would not interfere; the former had no need of wasting ammunition and the latter followed the former's actions. He was certain Trowa had no need for close combat duels, either.

The gruff voice he had heard during the beginning of the battle started. "To be battling children…. What dreadful happening have I come upon?" the man sighed, and Wufei felt there was something heavy, something lamentable in that sigh.

"But it is of no matter. It seems there's no running from destiny. I hold no presumptions of how this battle will turn out. My fate has been sealed, and this bloody battlefield, along with the bodies of my fellow officers will be my witness, my testimony, on how I comport myself in these last moments. I know the result of this battle. But still… I have no options left. A man cannot run from destiny. It is destiny who thrusts itself onto man whether they know it or not. I must achieve victory and Kudelia Aina Bernstein! I, Gjallarhorn's Mars Branch Frontline Troops, First Lieutenant Crank Zent, pilot of the EB-06 Graze, challenge you two to a duel.

"Do you accept?"

Wufei knew his answer and his body reacted. He turned on his speaker system. "Chang Wufei, pilot of Nataku, accepts your duel."

"Um. CGS Third Group, pilot of Barbatos, Mikazuki Augus, accepts," the new Gundam's pilot responded, a little awkward, a little unsure.

"Then here I come!"

Crank charged towards Wufei in a burst of blue fire. Wufei met him head on. They clashed! The metal head of the axe collided with the metal staff below the blade. The sparks rained and the sound of the collision pierced the air in a howling screech of metallic friction. They were locked in a game of strength, Wufei forcing the Crank backward, but the Graze, trembling under such power, responded resolutely, holding its ground.

Wufei's alert sensor went off. Coming towards them, hailing a gale of red dust in its wake, was Barbatos, its mace dropping on Crank with a force to smash him into metal refuse. Crank dodged the mace, sidestepping and turning to Barbatos, swinging its axe at Barbatos's midsection. The blade howled through the air. Barbatos countered quickly, raising its mace to block the strike. The two exchanged relentless strikes that crashed and reverberated in harsh dissonance.

Wufei watched the ferocity, searching for an opening. Barbatos lunged with its mace. Mikazuki was hoping to finish this fight quickly, Wufei analyzed, but he was relying too much on the Gundam's natural abilities since the suit was out of gas. Crank knew this, and he sidestepped and slashed into the handle of the mace; the mace fell to the ground and the handle spun in the air and soon struck the ground. Crank rammed his shoulder into the Barbatos, throwing the opposing machine off balance and to the ground.

Wufei saw his opening, and Nataku threw her left Dragon Fang, its mouth open, her fangs ready to crush and shred Crank. The Dragon Fang caught Crank's right arm just as he was about to slash into the Barbatos, and clenched, crushing the arm. Wufei retracted the armament and it wrenched the machine's arm off completely. The force of the retraction caused Crank to skid a distance towards him on the ground, face down, oil gushing from the vicious wound and electricity, wildly, sparking and sputtering at severed chords.

Crank slowly stood his Graze, its joints groaning and smoke billowing out of the missing arm, but from behind the Barbatos descended with murder in its green eyes, the suit, mace in hand stabbed into Crank's back, a pile driver shooting through the cockpit, lifting Crank up and impaling him to the blue sky, like a sacrifice to a bloodthirsty deity. The Graze fell limp like a doll; its remaining limbs dangled lifelessly as oil continued to splash on the red soil from its wounds.

Barbatos brought him down and removed its pile driver, this time, oil and blood mixed on the driver. Wufei gazed at the scene in indifference, and then moved to the Barbatos, where the suit's green eyes were alive with power. Barbatos retracted its pile driver and faced Wufei.

"Will you be in my way, too?" Mikazuki asked through the open frequency. The boy's voiced was slurred and in a harsh whisper. Something, to him, was happening in the cockpit. Was the boy straining himself or did Crank's shoulder shove injure him?

Wufei found that he didn't care. If his opponent was ready to battle, no matter his state, he would meet him head on. Wufei brought his's yuyuendao behind his back and attached the second blade. He swung the blades in a series of blurring figure eights, casting a roaring gale with each swing, and then slammed it to the ground, the blades sinking and creating fissures around the sunken weapon.

"If you think you can defeat me then prepare yourself for the worst."

Wufei leaned eagerly on his controls. Here was a worthy opponent to clash swords in a test to measure his strength through a life and death match. His heart pounded in anticipation, his warrior's blood surging, and his dark eyes burned and flashed for battle. Barbatos moved first. The suit charged and then stumbled after its first steps and collapsed to the ground motionless, its pile driver flying out its hands and skidding a few yards from the suit.

The battle had ended before it began, and Wufei's sudden adrenaline rush crashed into a sea of underwhelming confusion that broke his focus. He came to the sudden realization that Mikazuki may have been more injured than he first thought. He watched the fallen Gundam for a moment, studying and analyzing the machine, putting it to memory.

Wufei turned to Heavyarms and the base, finding the Gundam had one Gatling Gun trained on the motionless Barbatos. The battlefield was unearthly still. Trowa popped on his monitor, his face a mask of impassiveness that revealed nothing to Wufei. However, his tone was anything but emotionless. "You almost went a bit overboard," Trowa said disapprovingly.

Wufei grunted irritably, sheathing his blades behind his skirt. "It wasn't like I didn't learn anything. This battle has taught me much."

Trowa flicked his eyes to the side, his green orbs catching something, and then returned to Wufei's. "I'm sure it has."

* * *

Trowa watched the remaining mobile suit retreat in the distance, feeling neither encouraged to chase it and, with finality, end it, nor follow it to its home base and rein destruction on its comrades. He did not know how many more units they had, or wanted to know for that matter. However, he knew, and this was response born from years in the battlefield, this battle was not over. More would come, in a repeat incursion, to annihilate the base. The waiting had begun.

Trowa's attention turned to the collapse Gundam, perplexed by the strange machine's inactivity. The Barbatos, he recalled, lied motionless on the ground. The suit had inexplicably shutdown, much to Trowa's relief, he'd rather not have to dismember the suit. He turned to Sandrock, watching the suit return its shotels to its rack.

"Quatre?" Trowa questioned. Was the boy surrendering? Trowa shook his head at that thought. Quatre knew better. Quatre wanted to negotiate.

"What are you doing, Quatre?" called Duo, his image, now, on his left screen. "We're in the middle of a battle, ya know?"

"What battle? This battle's over," said Wufei, appearing on his far left screen.

Quatre's image appeared on his right screen. His face held a determined smile.

"Doesn't this remind you of how we first met, Trowa?"

Trowa was silent for a moment, and then, feeling a small smile from nostalgia tug at his lips, agreed. "In a way, I guess. However, I believe we had the same intentions at Corsica."

Quatre seemed delighted by Trowa's answer and he agreed. "Yeah. That may be so, but we can still find a common ground. We made our intentions known by helping them. And I believe our ally is incapable of fighting. Why not end it here?"

Duo shrugged, he seemed more than willing to agree. "Worth giving it a try, I guess."

Trowa nodded, and Quatre smiled, encouraged by his friends. "The battle has ended." Quatre's soft yet firm voice rang over the battlefield. The battle weary and exhausted children turned their heads to the voice of Sandrock, gazing upon its form in awe, for the four mobile suits before them were the only standing suits left.

"You guys should bring your wounded in for medical treatment. It looks like you've endured a lot."

"I agree," a voice spoke from the facility. It was by the same lilac-haired teen he had seen who had ordered the Gundam into battle. "If you don't mind discussing this in person, we can move on to the next step. To those that are able to, we need to get our comrades first aid. Move it now!"

A scramble of bodies poured from the base searching for survivors in the early morning wreckage. Quatre moved toward the immobile Gundam, and slung it along Sandrock's shoulder. Duo went to help, moving its left arm over Deathscythe's shoulder. The five moved to the top of the base. Duo and Quatre placed the suit on the ground gently.

Surrounding them were those beige-colored tanks and numerous children, their dirty faces looking upon them in wonder. They were as quiet as mice among humans. Seeing their Gundams must have been a sight to see.

"I'll keep watch," Wufei stated.

Trowa, Quatre, and Duo, nodded together. Trowa looked up and opened his top compartment. In place were one automatic rifle, a holster, and clips of ammunition, a handgun, and his helmet. He grabbed the handgun and inserted the cartridge into the magazine. Intimidation wasn't his focus, he was more subtle. He clipped the holster around his waist and inserted the gun into it.

His finger glided to the cockpit lever, gently touching the oblong lever, hesitant on flicking it up. Confusion and uncertainty pulled at Trowa. The threat of the atmosphere hovered over him, and he wondered about the reaction it would have on his body. Did human evolution acclimate to the carbon-dioxide rich air, or if there were high traces in the atmosphere? Thoughts of asphyxiation crossed his mind, but he knew, as it were, staying in Heavyarms would only bring a slow death as he did not have infinite air, drink or food inside. He leaned forward as if in thought, narrowed his green eyes, and took the leap. The cockpit door opened to the yawning distance of Mars.

A sudden coolness struck him, followed by the breath of sunlight warming his skin. He breathed in deeply and found the air oxygenated. Trowa accessed his pulley and descended down to the planet below. He touched ground gently but was soon struck by the sudden lightness of his body. He felt as heavy as a pillow. As he walked to the child soldiers he nearly had to skip to adjust to Mars's gravity.

Duo and Quatre came down soon after. Quatre nearly fell over but semi-jumped/skipped, but Duo took the tumble falling on his ass, receiving a chorus of laughs from the gathering boys at the base. Duo cursed, trying to right himself up. He took a step forward but jumped accidentally. Duo cursed again, and he took a moment and a few careful steps before he developed a good pace for walking. Quatre went to help but Duo shooed him away, slightly embarrassed. They were able to meet Trowa near the children.

The watching children, especially the younger ones, roared in laughter. Whatever tension was broken for the moment. They whispered excitedly amongst themselves but soon quieted as the lilac-haired teen made her presence known. Everything about her, from her sharp pointed nose that arrogantly sat on her face to her gravity defying spiky lilac hair and her yellow penetrating eyes, screamed defiance.

"What a babe," Duo remarked, his smile bordering on fascination and appreciation. Quatre chastised him, but there was no escaping his blue eyes shining in interest. He seemed to agree with Duo's assessment. The girl was captivating; however, on examination her captivation stemmed from a commanding presence that imbued respect, an aura that seemed enthralling, radiant, and dangerous. Her aura radiated off her like a white rose in a gray gloom, and her intelligent and sharp yellow eyes were its thorns.

The girl either took no heed of Duo's comment or had not heard it. The girl watched them sharply from her positon on the tank's turret hatch, like a predatory hawk circling the sky, ready to make a kill on a defenseless dove – but the Gundam pilots were no doves and neither defenseless; they were their own beasts, and the girl seemed to know after a second of observation, a frown evident on her face. The teen had a red cable attached to her back. She detached it and jumped down. Another boy, also shirtless, with shaggy blond hair and baggy gray pants and black combat boots, climbed up from the hatch, and stood beside her. A line of child soldiers, armed with assault rifles, stood protectively around her. They put on brave faces but it belied their skittishness when their wide eyes rose to the Gundams. Seeing machines like theirs did have that effect of fear. It was the Gundam pilot's threat if talks devolved.

Quatre walked toward the teen, raising his goggles up, and smiled warmly. The smile caught the brown-skinned girl off-guard for a second; she narrowed her yellow eyes at his advance. She walked forward as well until they were a few inches away, her guards shadowing her like the pilots shadowing Quatre.

"Not a bad lot you have here," Duo commented, surveying the base and children. "You guys were pretty impressive, fighting against mobile suits. That takes guts, ya know. Not many have that, let alone are foolish enough to tackle them head on in your machines. Nice job.

"However," Duo smiled, "it was bit reckless."

"Yeah," responded the teen, tersely. She glanced at their machines, her eyes inquisitive, looking for something hidden in them then brought them back on the pilots. "Did Maruba send you? The First Corps? We heard nothing about backup. We didn't have any indication there would be a force as large as the one's we were facing."

Quatre frowned at the question in confusion, as did the two Gundam pilots. The name was not familiar. Trowa then knew something was off about this battle. He swiftly recounted the battle, his eyes narrowing at a certain suspicion: These Gjallarhorn soldiers would have massacred them with the amount of force assembled. The thought did not sit well for Trowa.

Quatre shook his head. "The First Corps? Maruba? I'm sorry but I don't know who they are?"

The teen frowned, closed her right eye, and clicked her tongue. "So you're not with Maruba or the First Corps. Then who are you? Why did you help us?"

"Well. Unfortunately, it was never our intention to fight a battle, especially yours. However, we…" Quatre paused, thinking. "…We were descending to Mars when, by happenstance, we found your battle. We were prepared to retreat when those green mobile suits attacked without confirming our identification as noncombatants. They took us by surprise by their brashness."

"More like foolishness," Duo added, chuckling. Quatre glanced at him for a second before returning to the girl.

"So you were forced to fight Gjallarhorn when then they attacked you?" asked the girl. "I find it hard to believe that armed fighters would have dropped down," – she looked severely at the Gundams. – "from space right in the middle of the battle without knowing they were about to be in conflict. Forgive me, but it sounds too much like a coincidence for me to believe what you say."

"But that's exactly right!" Duo exclaimed. "That's how it happened. A real nuisance, ya know? The bad day keeps piling up. You guys should count yourselves lucky we arrived here, otherwise your camp would have been in worst shape."

The girl snorted, and then smiled sardonically. "Is that so? So we have you to thank, huh?"

"Not if you don't want to. We don't do free favors, lady" Duo said, smiling. "But you could give us a discount and such."

"A discount?" the blond exclaimed, turning to the lilac-haired teen. "Orga! They can't be serious. Are they?"

"We are. All we want is information," Quatre answered. "Honestly, we're pretty lost at moment."

"Information? Lost?" Orga looked incredulous at them. She did not believe them. Her tone came became harsh. "Is this some sort of a joke? You arrive out of nowhere, help defeat Gjallarhorn, and now all you want is information? We're not fools!"

"I honestly wish it was, but we're in a bad place right now," Duo said softly but his voice soon took a tone of exasperation: "Yeesh! This is so otherworldly; it's making my head spin. Mars? How in the hell did this happen? How in the hell I'm still alive?"

"So who are you guys anyway?" said the long-haired blond. He rose to stature as if not to be outdone by his female comrade but his face seemed uncertain. He seemed half-impressed and half-suspicious and he could not decide which face to put forth. "Not that we're grateful, however," he looked at them and their Gundams uneasily, "we still don't know who you are or the company you work for."

"Oh. My apologies. We're… um… we're the G-Team" – Trowa snorted inwardly – Duo snorted loudly. Of course Quatre would use that name bestowed to them by Howard. – "My name Quatre Rabera Winner," Quatre introduced, bringing his hand out. The lilac-haired teen nodded, then smirked and shook Quatre's hand. "I'm Orga Itsuka, captain of the Chryse Guard Security's Third Group."

"And I'm Duo Maxwell. I may run and hide, but I never tell a lie. That's me in nutshell." Duo gave a two finger salute. "And the one still in the mobile suit is Wufei" – Duo pointed his thumb behind him to Altron – "Don't mind him too much; he's like his mobile suit – the strong silent type. If you bother him enough he'll talk. It might do him some good to a have conversation or two instead moping around like a wet mop."

"Don't push it, 02," Wufei's annoyed tone rang around them from Altron. Duo rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

"See! Like I said," Duo smiled smugly, glancing to Wufei. Trowa could feel Wufei's glower from behind his suit. Duo went to shake Orga's hand, his smile a bit wider than usual.

Orga moved to Trowa bringing her hand up. Trowa crossed his arms which provoked a sudden narrowing of the girl's eyes. She stopped in front of him, affronted and glaring. "You can call me Trowa Barton."

"Is that so," remarked Orga, raising her brow, and dropping her hand. "Well, whatever."

Her eyes swiftly fell on the Barbatos, a small smile pulling at her lips and her wild features softened. "Thank you for bringing back Mika." Orga faced them again, the small smile dissolving into a neutral expression. "I appreciate it."

"I'm Eugene Sevenstark, Orga's second-in-command," said the now named blond.

Duo and Quatre shook Eugene's hand. Eugene moved to Trowa but found himself slightly embarrassed at Trowa's rebuff. Trowa would rather not shake hands with people he did not know. Such a simple gesture required trust, and Trowa refused to put his trust in these kids. Trust wasn't something that could be handed; it was earned through bloodshed and time. Orga closed one eye at him. Quatre chastised Trowa but Trowa nonchalantly shrugged it off.

"I don't give my trust so easily," he finally explained to Orga and Eugene.

"How harsh," Duo said, chuckling lowly.

"I'm the same way," Orga said, her eyes telling Trowa that she found him suspicious, but there was, glinting, briefly, a measure of respect. She understood his hostility for, as dangerous as this situation was, she couldn't cede any weakness less being taken advantage of. Orga seemed the type to spurn fake niceties. Trowa liked that. Eugene seemed to take offense as did the child soldiers behind him, glaring at Trowa, but Trowa remained unmoved by their budding feelings of antipathy.

"Hey, Gundam pilots gotta stick together. This Mika guy sure ain't a bad pilot," Duo complimented, changing the conversation. "Never knew a mobile suit could move like that besides the Zero."

"Gundam?" said Eugene, cupping his chin between his index and thumb. The word seemed to spark a chorus of confused chatter among the children. "Is that the mobile suit's name or something? Do you know anything about this Orga?"

Orga's silent response was Eugene's answer, and he turned to the pilots for a response.

"You've gotta be kidding me? You guys didn't know you were piloting a Gundam?" Duo face became skeptical. He gesticulated at the Gundam Barbatos. "Ya know - that huge piece machinery with the golden crest?" Seeing the surrounding children's perplexed faces, he palmed his face. "Joking is one thing, but ignorance is another. This is totally crazy."

"We haven't heard the name 'Gundam' before. We thought it was just an old mobile suit from the forgotten age of the Calamity War. Just a relic. We used it to power our facility. If it is indeed a Gundam, like yours, it certainly has the strength to take on Gjallarhorn," said Orga, a wild smile on her face.

Duo laughed, throwing his head back. Mirth displayed on his face when he finished and he almost seemed to burst into another round of laughter. "Well, now, never thought I'd hear a Gundam being used as a battery. You don't hear that every day."

"Anyways. Orga, right? You said you're the leader of Third Group, then who's in charge?" Quatre steered the conversation. "Where are your leaders?" Quatre slowly looked around the base trying to spot a leader among the crowd of children and teens.

Orga looked away, scowling deeply, unbridled anger morphing her attractive face into something vengeful, and then looked back. "They're a bunch of incompetent assholes that left us to die in this red desert. The president, Maruba, is gone, and now…" hearing a noise, Orga turned sharply to her left, her scowl transforming into a feral glare. "Looks like the cowards didn't turn tail and run after all. Lucky us."

All the boys' heads turned to the ridges where a storm of red dust was sweeping in on them. In the distance, glinting in the early morning light, a unit of beige tanks treaded across the red desert. There were four of them and they moved in a single file row, unhurried, and, perhaps, wary. Trowa could see their irate and fearful faces, looking upon the mobile suits standing at the crest of the hill. On closer inspection, the faces weren't those of children but of adults, and they appeared haggard from the conflict.

"Where were they?" Duo questioned.

The question hung in the air. No one answered the question, and Trowa, turning back to the children's faces, they couldn't; their hands were balled into fists and looks of utter contempt reflected in their young faces. "They're the cowards who abandoned us," Orga growled, voicing the children's frustration and revulsion for their superiors.

"Incompetent fools who had no real strategy on beating back Gjallarhorn. We were just tools, disposable trash, and their sacrificial pawns for fleeing this battle. And they call us space rats? Pathetic," spat Orga.

"Gjallarhorn?" repeated Quatre, "So that's the names of the organization commanding those tanks and mobile suits. How strange."

"Tanks? You mean mobile workers," a bright-eyed boy with even brighter orange hair called in front of some of the boys, wearing a loose fitting, muted yellow tank top and baggy gray pants tucked into soiled black boots. He looked very young and comparatively shorter than those that were behind him.

Quatre smiled and turned his attention to the young boy. "Yes. And who might you be?"

"The name is Ride Mass!" Ride grinned. He looked up to the new machines. "Your suits are incredible, Mr. Quatre!"

"They certainly are, kid," Duo agreed proudly, "Especially my buddy, Deathscythe! I don't wanna brag, but my buddy isn't just for show."

"Eh. It's not much," Ride replied snobbishly, giving a brief glance then returning his focus on Sandrock, his eyes glittering in wonder. Duo gaped for a moment, and then closed his mouth. His eyes looked as if they would bulge from their sockets.

Duo righted himself up and took two steps to the front. He nearly appeared to fall over – either from the shock of Ride's statement or disorientation of Mars's gravity or both. "Look, kid –"

"Ride."

"Whatever. Do you know what art is? Can your small brain comprehend the magnitude of completing this? My buddy is a work of art. You wanna how many hours and months it took to construct this deadly beauty? This machine ain't a pushover."

Ride shrugged simply, but he seemed to enjoy Duo's look of aghast. Duo went on a rant, raving this and that, using Deathscythes specs and designs to persuade Ride while Quatre laughed aloud. Trowa couldn't help but smile softly at the scene. They were like two brothers.

The atmosphere that had once swept them in tension broke, the children, though nervous, talked amongst themselves, pointing to the red desert and the Gundams, chatting and recounting excitedly about the battle between Gjallarhorn and the Gundams. Yet some of them, the older ones, gave the Gundam pilots wary glances, mourning in silence or aloud, comforted by the arms of their comrades and friends.

The sight was hauntingly familiar. Trowa could remember his time with the mercenaries when they occasionally would lose a comrade, and how the camp would either mourn silently, drink to intoxication, or trade stories of their friendships. The comradery among the children was palpable because, in the vast universe, surrounded by weapons and death, where the chances of death outweighed survival, they were only ones they had. Such bonds surpassed mere friendship. He felt the same way with his Operation: M comrades. They had endured a lifetime's worth of tragedy; such bonds forged in the fires of war were only hardened and strengthened.

The excited chatter soon vanished replaced by a silent trepidation. Fear rose and it shined in the younger children's eyes with simmering anger in the background; the older ones had an ugly brutal rage. The group of mobile workers had arrived. The machines parked in two lines of two in front of the Gundams as if they could defend their base from them. Fifteen adults stepped out of their mobile workers and walked towards Trowa, Quatre, Duo, and Orga. They wore different uniforms than the children. Some of the children had large, green jackets over their muscular forms with gray pants. Their adult counterparts wore earthy beige and brown uniforms.

The man leading the troupe held an expression of aversion. Disdain poured from his being as if he wanted to, in an instant, lash and castrate any child that came in his line of vision. He sneered on his black-mustached face at the children, barking out orders like a rabid dog. He had a physically imposing presence in his beige and black uniform, his chest broad like a giant wall and he used his size to his advantage, towering over the children with his proximity as if he could crush them on a mere whim. A blond-haired soldier came behind him, domineering and baleful, shouting orders in manic glee. Another one, with an oversized gut showing through his black tank top and a toothbrush moustache, though reluctant, followed the bale blond's lead in ordering the children. The children behind Orga promptly scrambled to retrieve the refuse and get the injured. The adults' anger struck like thunder and the children fled at the sound of it.

The black-mustached man turned to the Barbatos. His face twisted in disgust and fury and then, as if swallowing it in, neutrality. But his dark eyes burned. His fury would come soon. He rounded on Orga, standing in front of him, peering down in contempt. His eyes conspicuously moved downward, leering at her breasts, then her toned stomach, and then back up, as if she was his possession. Trowa found himself revolted by the man's lasciviousness.

"Orga Itsuka!" he bellowed.

Orga's face remained impassive from her superior's lewd look. She stood at attention, her right leg stepping out, her chin tilted up. The man bore into Orga challengingly and Orga's face remained blank, however, her yellow eyes mirrored insubordination, an obstinate gleam that desired solely for retribution. The man clenched his fists angrily, not receiving the reaction he wanted.

"Yes, Captain Gunnel."

"The Third Group is to repossess all equipment and broken mobile workers and bring them to the docks for repairs after the injured have been taken care of. You, Akihiro, Biscuit, and Eugene will report to me once you've finished your job. Give me the estimates of how many casualties and the percentage of workable units, got it?"

"What about Maruba? Is he coming back?" Orga said. Orga was swiftly backhanded. Blood trickled from her split lip but her yellow eyes remained steadfast on Captain Gunnel. Gunnel seemed taken aback by Orga's glower and he glanced swiftly away from her eyes for a moment, afraid that if he continued to stare at her he would reveal something to her that would put him at a disadvantage. Trowa did not know what that was, but he suspected Captain Gunnel had an inferiority complex that fueled his fear.

"I did not give you permission to speak, space rat," Gunnel shouted. "Get this shit cleaned up, and" – turning to the Barbatos, frowning – "who was the one piloting the mobile suit?"

Orga wiped the blood from her lips but still glared. "Mikazuki Augus, sir."

Captain Gunnel snorted. He tilted his head back to Orga. "Damn. Have Yukinojo get him out of the suit. Shit. When I'm gone the space rats go wild." He smirked unkindly, and bent his head forward, meeting Orga's face. "Now get to it before sunset or no food for you. If you and your officers get the estimates wrong, well, I'm sure your subordinates wouldn't also mind a day without food, too."

Orga gritted her teeth, saluted, and left into the facility. Captain Gunnel watched her, a strange expression on his ugly face. Captain Gunnel turned around to Quatre, Duo, and Trowa. The three pilots were stoned face and Captain Gunnel seemed leery of them. "Now who the hell are you three?"

"We're the space rats who saved yours and your comrades' asses," Duo said quietly, crossing his arms. His blue eyes were pools of stormy seas and he channeled them on Captain Gunnel.

Gunnel shifted awkwardly. "Did Maruba send you?"

The pilots remained silent. "Shit." He then as if noticing for the first time looked at their mobile suits, a bit stunned, then back at them. "If he didn't send you, then who the hell are you and what do you want? If you don't want anything, get the hell off our property."

"We're looking for information," Quatre said, his disposition cold but still polite. Trowa glanced at Quatre. The teen had brought out his diplomatic persona. It was subtle because of the softness of his voice caught many unaware. Quatre was rarely cold to people – more formal and diplomatic. However, when Quatre became unfriendly, his tone was firm as stone.

Gunnel's expression was dumbfounded, and he slowly moved his burning eyes on the three boys. Making demands, especially from children, was not something he was used. He seemed more prone to throwing out orders than supplying any questions. "And why should I give that to you?"

"Are you foolish to think that _you're_ in a position to make demands? That _you_ have the power to demand anything over us?" Trowa declared, his hands gripped his biceps tightly, and he condescendingly tilted his head down. Although he did not know the children, just by looking at them, at their helplessness to these tyrants, he was angered by their treatment from the adults.

"Do _you_ really want to take that course of action?" Trowa added bitingly.

Duo snorted in disdain, his blue eyes turning cruel. "Maybe he would like to take a walk to the river Styx. I'm sure we could make passage for him and his men, free of charge," Duo added with a portentous smile.

"I wouldn't mind being the ship captain to guide him across," Wufei's voice proclaimed from Altron, his tone disgusted and angered. "It would be the most deserving thing I can do for him."

The overhanging threats weren't lost on Gunnel. Captain Gunnel stammered then composed himself – his subordinates didn't as they rushed backwards a bit. Sweat lined Gunnel's forehead, and he swallowed harshly. He looked as if he wanted to disappear.

"Well… um… Fine. You get your way. However, it's going to be awhile before all systems are up. That machine's," Gunnel pointed to the Barbatos, "A-hab reactor powers are facility. We can't do much until it's installed, once again, into its repository. Our backup generators can only do so much, and with the A-hab waves influencing the electricity, it'll take a few hours. If you wanna wait around on your ass for that to happen then be my guest."

He then took off with the adults following him. They crowded together, but in their frightened expressions, expressed in their backward glances, they knew as of now who controlled their lives, and were relieved to get the much needed distance from the Gundam pilots as they could.

"They're too weak," Trowa said distastefully, watching the First Corp's departing backs.

"What an asshole!" Duo said loudly. He put a hand to his forehead and bent his head a bit and shook it. "Damn it! Who was it that saved their behinds? Hmph. Orga was right! They are a bunch of cowards."

"Things aren't looking great, are they?" Quatre remarked, staring ponderously at the ground. He looked to be wrestling with their precarious predicament. "This is a lot to take in."

Duo sighed, raking his hair agitatedly. "I guess they aren't."

Trowa watched the PMC in silence. Things, certainly, had taken a radical change. He hoped it was a change that they could manage. If not he wasn't sure what would happen.

* * *

Time elapsed slowly as the day grew on. The wide blue sky had turned into a mourning orange-red dusk that shadowed the cruel and rising surrounding mountain ranges. There was a slight chill in the air that lingered uncomfortably cold and biting. Wufei ignored the cold, sitting silently on Nataku's right leg, watching the sky. The mobile suit was lying on its back, along with its brother suits.

Wufei was stunned. Mars! Stranded on an alien yet familiar setting was certainly the oddest thing he had ever done. He looked across the distance. The red mountain ranges cruelly and imposingly stood across from him on the red barren desert. It, in a way, felt like a cage, a chain of intimidating guards barring him from civilization that lay beyond the red hill.

Everything was new. Everything was so frightfully new that it chilled him to his core. The sights, the sounds, the smell and their strangeness revolved around Wufei, stirring emotions of wonder and bewilderment. It also made him suspicious for he was in a foreign land.

Wufei looked into his hands. He was holding a large piece of red metal he had found roaming the battlefield. This particular piece of wreckage had come from a destroyed enemy mobile worker. What had caught Wufei's interest was the white and proud emblem imprinted on the metal. It was Gjallarhorn's symbol: a strange, four-legged, white and fury beast blowing a large curved horn. Adorning the horn was a flag, embellished with seven stars, a seemingly medieval relic of a forgotten time.

Strangely enough, the pilots did not appear as majestic as the symbol. They were arrogant and impulsive, except for lt. Crank Zent. He held a caliber and nobleness, a man sworn to duty, of his rank. He may have been a noble fool – he had had the chance to retreat – but his foolishness was endearing to Wufei, and he respected his last stand.

Wufei used his finger to lightly trace over the scarred metal's stars. Seven stars meant seven families or groups or whatever. Maybe they were a military force split into seven divisions. He would find that out soon enough when the base became operable. They had on this day made enemies and the retreating foes would certainly tell their superiors of their defeat. They would come back for vengeance.

He looked to the machines and mobile workers of his allies. They were lined up, their supplies and armaments replenished; other inoperable and damaged mobile workers were stripped down to their core, the PMC using the remaining metal for other repairs and conservation. An older man, his skin as dark and rich as Earth's soil, which contrasted sharply with the red Martian soil, had come out earlier to remove Mikazuki from Barbatos's cockpit. As soon as he had opened the cockpit, he spent a few minutes with the pilot, but oddly, and with a solemn sigh, he left the boy in the suit and went to aid the children and some of the adults around the base.

Wufei surmised he was the head mechanic, the way he ordered the children to repair and refuel the remaining mobile workers, his mechanical eye for detail, and those that came to him for assistance, including the younger ones, gave Wufei that impression. The man was in the distance by the depots. He kept giving brief glances to the Gundams and the Barbatos, checking his watch as if counting the time it would take for Mikazuki to awake. His head turned to Wufei. In a surprising move, he headed towards him. Wufei could now see him clearly.

He was a tall, dark man with a genial face and an equally darker goatee. He was large and muscular, his barrel chest outlining his thin beige shirt, and he wore black cargo pants. What surprised Wufei was in his walk. His steps sounded like clanks, and when looking down, he saw metal boots. No. Peering closer they were not metal boots. They were metal prosthetics legs.

He stopped in front of him, admiring Nataku's flat form. His smile grew on his large lips. "Wonderful craftsmanship I dare say. Never seen anything like it, besides ol' Barbatos right there" - he inclined his head to the kneeling suit. "And even then, I never thought I would see it move till today happened. Whoever it was that designed your suit certainly knew what to expect. They had a clear idea of its objective." The man had a deep, gravelly voice that was oddly comforting and calming. The voice carried its own rhythm of pain, sadness and worldliness, a measured intonation that never seemed to rise too high or too low. Wufei felt instantly like he could trust him – he felt no malice, evil, or duplicitous intentions from the older man.

"And that is what?" Wufei asked, curiously peering at him with his dark eyes.

The man gave a smile that was both sad and amused. "War. It's never eluded those that want it." He continued to look at Nataku for a moment, his inquisitive brown eyes inspecting each detail with sharp focus, rendering Nataku bare to him.

"I agree. Those bloodthirsty enough would sell their souls for their own entitled justice."

"Justice?" the man stopped examining Nataku and bore his deep eyes on Wufei. "There's no such thing as justice."

That line swiftly bought Wufei's full attention. He had said the same thing once upon a time. There was no such thing as justice, _except_ in individual cases. He had stuck to that notion until Meilan's sacrifice, but still, he wondered, still confused, still unsure of the world around him, if justice, his own sense of justice, was a pursuit misguided.

The man continued, his brown eyes sweeping the child soldiers clearing away refuse and replanting mines on the barren slopes of the hill, the adults overseeing their work, shouting out orders until they were red in the face. His eyes appeared gentler and sorrowful. "Does justice look like this?" He motioned to the children getting belittled and beaten from their adult overseers. "There is no such thing as justice outside the Earth's Sphere. Justice to the oppressed, justice to a child looking for food and shelter, justice for a population left to a lawless wasteland that only fields more bodies each day than I can count. Justice to us is nonexistent. I don't believe in it. Fair has always been blind to those seeking it. Like us - the disenfranchised, the poor and downtrodden, the children. Like us – the wretched who have been kicked and beaten to our early coffins."

He turned back to Wufei, his eyes more perceptive. It made Wufei uneasy. It was like the man was seeing through him, his dark eyes clairvoyant and empathetic. "It is not justice humans want, but greed and retribution. Here. In this selfish and unkind world. That selfish desire for more, for power, they have and will continue to struggle with it for eternity."

The man gestured to his legs. "It was greed that took away my legs. One learns a lot when things they don't often think about, that they use every day, are, suddenly, taken from them."

Greed. The man wasn't wrong. Greed made good men corrupt. Wufei found that desire repulsive. And yet he could not deny he was greedy, too. He yearned secretly for more in his life as a soldier, for that settled purpose of finding himself in combat. Greed was his driving force for fulfillment, and he distastefully shunned that part of himself. It was unbecoming, but he needed to fill the void that was left after the war.

"If you're looking for justice, brat, you will not find it here. Tales of sadness are more common than the greatest of hope. But -" the man smiled wryly - "I think you've brought some hope and kindness, whether your intentions were true or not, to us. So you have my gratitude.

"I just came to say thank you, brat. I've already thanked your friends; they're inside the docks helping out with repairs. It's not every day another PMC would come and fight with us. A company made of child soldiers and coward adults. But it's really appreciated. More appreciated, I believe, on the children here."

"You're welcome," Wufei said quietly, still pondering the man's words. His words left a powerful mark on him that he couldn't shake. They slithered in him, and he hated it. "The weak… the weak shouldn't be fighting, not like this, not for the trash of their tyrants."

The man nodded sullenly. "Yes. What can you do when employment for war is the only thing they can scrape? They may be weak, but if I learned anything from them, they have hearts of iron, and spirits of heroes. They're not to be underestimated, no matter the field. I'm sure you've seen that while helping them clear away their fallen friends and clean up the field."

Wufei gave a small smile. The kids were fighters; they were strong. They had a determined heart that sought to live another day. He never for a second doubted their tenacity or perseverance. They, in a way, reminded him of Meilan.

"You bear an awful amount weight, too."

Wufei said nothing. The weight was too raw to put into words, and he was burdened by its pressure to crush him. To speak of it right now was vulnerability, and to appear vulnerable was a weakness: it was to admit hesitation of his heart and truth, and hesitation, as Master Long reminded, gave way to new battles. Wufei could hear Master Long's soft voice lecturing in his mind's eye:

 _Do not hesitate, Wufei. Your doubt will birth more battles. You must fight!_

The man smiled kindly at Wufei's silence. His strong and large hand gave a pat to Wufei's knee. Wufei turned his head to Barbatos, its tall form, in the dusk sun, hovered over the adult's mobile workers. The pilot hadn't left its cockpit. He idly wondered if the pilot was unconscious or dead.

"Don't worry about Mikazuki," the man said - watching to where Wufei's attention had drifted to. "He's unconscious right now. Better let him sleep than experience what has happened to his comrades. It'll hurt him when he wakes up."

"That doesn't explain why he remains in the cockpit."

"You're right. I cannot remove him. It's incredibly dangerous when an Alaya Vijanna user is still connected to the system, and to disconnect him from it while he's still attached to the machine, unconscious, could have negative repercussions. Death could be one of them or loss of functioning in his body parts. The world isn't too kind to children."

"Alaya Vijanna? Is that an interface connected to the pilots brain?" Wufei postulated. The Alaya Vijanna sounded similar to the Zero System without the physical attachment. He was again reminded of Orga and Eugene and their oblong, protruding skin that hung in the air. In fact, he searched the children, noting horrifyingly they all had the same operation on their backs. A cold rage shook him. The adults had none! The adults were monsters!

The man appraised the youth with his dark eyes, and then his brow seemed to furrow when they came to his back. He smiled understandingly. "Oh. How interesting. You're right in a way. The system connects from the pilot's the spine to the brain, forming another cerebral lobe. It's not something I would suggest anyone get freely." His look turned subdued.

So Alaya Vijanna acted as gateway to the machine and processed information into the pilot's brain. _The data load must be enormous_ , Wufei thought suddenly. And if Mikazuki was merely unconscious, Wufei wondered what type of impact it must have on him. He remembered the aftereffects of the ZERO System, and, truly, no matter how hard he had tried, he could never shake off the experience.

The two remained in a ponderous silence, each with their own thoughts on the system. The man checked his watch. His brow twitched and he grinned.

"It should be 'bout time. I'll be seeing you, kid. Oh, yeah. The name is Nadi Yukinojo Kassapa, the chief engineer and mechanic of CGS. You can call me Nadi or Yukinojo, whatever you like. Do you have a name, brat?"

"Wufei Chang."

"Come talk to me again, Wufei. It was fun."

Nadi nodded and gave a backward wave behind him while walking over to the Barbatos. Wufei wondered where he can get more information on this new world of Mars. His first impression wasn't promising. In the distance he saw a truck moving towards them. It was kicking up a storm of red dust behind its rear.

* * *

Orga made a left into the bathroom. She was in no hurry compared to the younger kids darting to and fro. There, she found a facet and went straight to it, turning the water to cold – they would very rarely receive warm; those privileges were granted to CGS's First Corps in their separate bathrooms.

Just thinking about them made her blood boil. She despised them and wished them dead. They were cowards that did not deserve to run this company, let alone live. They deserved no mercy. Mars's and hers and everyone else's life would be much better without their oppressive cruelty.

She looked up into the mirror, watching her angry yellow eyes glare back at her. A deep cut on her lip from Gunnel's backhand had split her lip. It was a lot wider than she thought as she touched the wound. If she wasn't used to the abuse it would have made her wince. A shallow injury like this did not move her so easily.

 _Gunnel_. Orga felt intolerable rage for him and his idiocy. The man, if he could be called that – a sniveling coward – would pay for his betrayal. Who did he and Maruba think they were to sacrifice them as they tried to flee the battle? Absolute cowards!

Orga hated him especially. He seemed to have this perverse desire for her to reciprocate his unwarranted feelings since he could not articulate them to her through normal means – she was beaten quite often from him for her lack of subordination. Orga had guessed it gave him a reason to talk to her or touch her – even when her mouth was full of blood. However, she was no fool. She knew what Gunnel wanted, she knew from his dark and blatant stares when she had started developing breasts and her body had changed so much that she did not resemble a boyish figure. He always seemed to undress with his eyes. Orga also knew Gunnel was too cowardly to do anything, less fill the wrath of her comrades and Mika. He feared Mikazuki especially. She had made sure to avoid Gunnel as much as possible.

Orga put her hands into the cold water, and it pooled around her dirty hands, and proceeded to wash her face. Relief came when the water hit her face. She splashed her face a few times then turned off the facet and stared into the crusted sink.

Anguish pulled at her heartstrings. They had lost so many after today's battle. It was their worse loss since her first few years in CGS. Forty-two dead! Forty-two! Her comrades were dead because of those incompetent, cowardice, bastards! They left them for dead!

She gripped the sink to keep herself from falling. Anger roared at her; it burned in her veins. She knew every single one of those faces – those bastards never even gave their time to talk to them, share in their pain! Each face, like ghosts, came into her mind's eye. She remembered Theo, whose jokes helped alleviate the mood; Al, who's hair could never be combed and remained untidy like his shoelaces – he was often beaten for his disarray; Eurt, who had joined a week before she and Mika, who loved shooting his rifle; Danji – that boy who she gave permission to fight, he was far too young. The guilt of his death tore into her soul. She gave him permission because they needed more men. All that was left of him was an earpiece from his headset. She could still hear Shino's wails mourning over his younger subordinate. Shino treated the boy like a little brother, and Danji wholeheartedly accepted anything Shino said. They were inseparable. Now, they were immutably far away.

Danji looked up to Orga, and she could say he had admired her and Mika's heroics on the battlefield. He wanted to be just like them. It was sad. He truly wanted to become a hero, because the older children represented a strength he sought in himself, a courageous and valiant spirit. In the end, he did, for all of them. Thinking of her men made Orga smile softly. They meant more to her than they would know. However, she had to live for them, and living could not wait: The living always had to move forward.

Her new train of thought led her to new revelations of the day. Orga was certain the casualty list would have been higher had it not been for those mysterious new mobile suits. Gundams, the G-Team had called them. The word was foreign on her tongue, but every time she said it aloud, it was in reverence of their power. Saying _Gundam_ felt like change, like power. Terrible and frightening power. It chilled her to her bones, but it also brought a manic glean to her yellow eyes. Gundam, an old relic of Mars's past, opened the gates of hope and brought the winds of change, the winds of rebellion.

The newcomers Gundams were like the mobile suit in the storage room that powered the facility. Their golden crowns fastened to their heads shone like conquerors, and the way they decimated Gjallarhorn, Mika included, gave Orga hope. That was power! Unyielding, unbending, purposeful, demanding and tremendous power!

It was power to change the future; power to change their fates; power to change their roles in CGS. She had seen mobile suits before, especially Gjallarhorn Grazes eradicating opposing PMCs. The Grazes were the top-of-the-line mobile suit force of Gjallarhon… and they were soundly defeated. Those five suits made the impossible possible, and the future seemed to, like a shuttered window destroyed by a wrecking ball, become unimaginably free.

The pilots certainly were a distinct bunch. Quatre Raberba Winner was the nicest of them, and he seemed to be the leader of the bunch, the diplomat. He didn't have the look of a soldier but Orga noticed his eyes were as fierce as any veteran of battle she had seen. He reminded her of Biscuit; they would get along fine. Duo Maxwell was the goofball, the loudmouth, and his mirth certainly knew how to ease tension in stressful situations. Wufei, though she saw him from afar aiding the Third Group in cleaning up their base, was silent and diligent. Wufei reminded her of Akihiro; calm outside of the battlefield but a dragon on it. And then there was Trowa Barton… Orga couldn't read him. She was always good at reading people's intentions but Trowa did not show much outward emotion; he was more mysterious, and certainly ruder of the three, but she couldn't blame him, they had just met. But the small smile she saw when Ride and Duo were arguing made Orga believe there something gentler to Trowa than he led on.

She wondered what would happen to them now. Where would they go, who would hire their services? Mercenaries were treasured on the Martian planet but it was always at a steep price for mercenaries owning mobile suits as they were rare. Gjallarhorn, Earth's military police force, monopolized the mobile suit industry. They destroyed most of their competition, too. Gjallarhorn would find them too threatening to leave alive. Anything confronting the might of Gjallarhorn was obliterated and then infamously labeled as a terrorist or dissident group plotting to overthrow Earth rule. It was the way the world worked; that's how Gjallarhorn fought, deceptively devious.

A thrum of footsteps approached as she rinsed her face with water once again. The footsteps stopped at the ingress.

"Orga," the voice of Eugene called. She turned her head to Eugene who now was dressed in his uniform. Eugene's face was serious and that made her frown.

"What?"

"The First Corps wants a meeting at 17:30. Gunnel wants all the top Third Group officers and Human Debris – You, me, Biscuit, Akihiro. Mikazuki has been made an exception. Captain Gunnel blames you for ordering Mikazuki to battle in the Gundam and for the flare that gave away their retreating positions."

Orga snorted in contempt. She turned back to the mirror. Her reflection regarded her in revulsion. "They want to punish us for their incompetence, to scapegoat their failure for our victory, knowing full well that victory cost us so many. Without Mika, without you guys, without those four mercenaries, we wouldn't have stood a hell of a chance, and they know it. They're just too arrogant and prideful to admit their mistakes to space rats like us."

"Orga. I'll take the bla—"

Orga's stricken face rounded on Eugene. The boy took a step backward. To be in the path of Orga's wrath was a call to death, a slow and cold and methodological end. "No you will not, Eugene!"

Eugene did not say anything. He didn't need to. Orga knew his uncharacteristic silent anger all too well. It was this silent anger that fueled her burning ire. "Let me get cleaned up first."

Eugene left and Orga was again alone with her reflection, a reflection that promised untold violence.

* * *

"Whoo! Finished. How many was that now? More than ten, right? Good grief, I can't feel my arms," Duo shouted inside the dock, slouching against the mobile worker's CITV, a black smear of grease on his cheek and his hair in a nest of disarray. Curious eyes from the younger children found Duo, and they proceeded to quietly chatter amongst themselves, laughing and pointing at him as he yawned loudly in the hangar. Duo dropped his wrench to the floor. The tool clattered loudly as it collided with the ground, making Quatre wince as it landed near his ear. He had been repairing the underside of the worker's left-sided, rear wheel and he wasn't expecting Duo to drop tools near his head. It would have given him a nice bruise if the wrench landed any closer.

Quatre couldn't help but feel the same. His body was aching all over. His fingers were red and burning, and he was sure he had grease stains in his hair and kimaggeh. He had shed his pilot suit for his normal clothes and they were now soiled and strongly smelled of oil. Coming from under the mobile worker, he leaned against the worker's frame, the sweat on his back, which had uncomfortably drenched his clothes, was cool to the touch. He slightly stiffened from the coolness of his drenched clothes meeting his skin, but relaxed and sighed wearily.

The backup generator had come on, powering half of the facility. Quatre looked down the row of finished and unfinished mobile workers, hearing the tinkering of machines and power tools and the rumbling of dented metal being pounded relentlessly straighter. The mobile workers that could not be salvaged were stripped bare and used either to reinforce those workers that could be saved or used for some other miscellaneous tasks around the base.

The Gundam pilots had just finished most of the repairs on the mobile workers. Many had to be dismantled for their condition was irreparable. Some still had bloody smears and remains of their fallen operators. The scenes were revolting and Quatre's heart took a pounding for each human remains they had come across.

Another thing that took the heir of the Winner family by surprise was those long red cables attached to the chairs. They were some sort of interface connected to the pilot and the machine. It was a ghastly device because it meant body modifications on the children at the base – and the thought struck him like lightning. His eyes quickly roamed the dock, and there his blue eyes found the truth. All the children, sans the adults, had body modifications to integrate into these machines. They were human test subjects, experiments, military tools of war. It all made sense now to him, why children as old as eight had protruding and oblong growths on their backs: It was how their bodies connected to the systems. All at once, and it came in waves, Quatre fought the nausea to vomit, to yell as loud as he could, at the injustice and inhumanity of it all. He clenched his heart and he bent forward a bit, riding the sea of his heartache. He wanted confront those responsible but his mind was still lucid and he could not let his burgeoning emotions of violence overtake him. So he swallowed down the pain and heartache, and kept it, at minimum, to a cool level that was tolerable. He exhaled his pain, letting go of his heart, and returned to reclining against the frame, his blue eyes staring upward at the ceiling, seeing nothing but his passing thoughts of sadness.

"It was twelve," Quatre counted, his voice distant, still looking up. He rubbed his sore arms up and down. The strenuous workout reminded him of his Operation: Meteor days with the Maganac Corps. In Saudi Arabia, at the Maganac Corps' secret base in the Al-Rabʿ al-Khali desert, he spent many a days when he was not on missions repairing and rearming their mobile suits. Fixing mobile suits gave Quatre better familiarity with mechanical tools and functionality of complex machines, and it also gave him something to do other than planning new strategies for missions.

"Twelve too many! I'm beat." Duo smelled himself; his eyes jolted, his nosed scrunched, disgust appeared on his face, and he shrunk back. "I smell like shit, guys. I think I'm gonna hurl. Where the hell are the showers? I've gotta rid the stink of today off. Although it's likely it's gonna be hard to remove after all that we've gone through. Yikes."

"Somewhere within the vicinity," echoed Trowa's voice from inside the mobile worker. His tone was light and playful, a welcoming change from when Quatre had met him last year. Trowa usually held a cool front, but getting to know the mysterious pilot, he was sincerely genial.

"I know that, but where?" Duo's blue eyes roamed the facility frantically like an impatient child.

"The showers are outside the dock, down the hall, and a few turns to the right," a soft voice answered. "I'll have someone show you where."

The voice came from a stout boy of about sixteen. He had a cheery smile on his large face, with an impressively larger cap that covered most of his mousy brown hair. He wore a green jacket with a red-orange lining, a white scarf tucked into his upturned collar, a grey shirt and pants, and black combat boots.

The boy gave them an impressive look, his smile growing larger as he examined the mobile worker. He took a few turns around the machine before standing, once again, in front of Quatre. He bobbed his head up and down, the rolls of neck squeezing together like a slinky, inspecting their work. He seemed to take his time, stopping here and there, his expression turning thoughtful, then a small smile quirking at the edge of his lips.

"Not a bad job. Impressive workmanship," the boy commented, putting his fingers between his amorphous chin. "Have you fixed mobile workers before?"

"Naw, buddy." Duo chuckled lightly. He worked himself into sitting position by crossing his legs. "It's just tricks of the trade of being a Gundam pilot, and spending too many hours tinkering on machines and mobile suits. Ya get a feelin' on how they work and move – with the right calculations and mechanics."

"Tricks of the trade?" the boy asked looking at Duo; eagerness shown in his small brown eyes. "I assume you're part of an organization, or a PMC of some kind?"

"That's a funny way of putting it," Quatre stated, dusting himself off. Quatre gave Duo a side smile. He knew exactly what Duo meant. Contributing to a guerilla war against a fascist oligarch for the Colonies' independence did impart knowledge one would consider less savory and more on the side of ruthless brutality and technical savviness.

Duo caught Quatre's smile and winked in return. Quatre walked forward and gave an open hand to the teen. "I'm Quatre Raberba Winner. And you are?"

The boy blinked then grasping Quatre's hand firmly, he replied, "I'm Biscuit Griffon, Chryse Guard Security's staff officer of the Third Group."

"It's a pleasure meeting you, Biscuit."

"Where do guys learn all of this?" Biscuit asked, motioning to the completed mobile workers.

"We're specially trained in the field of sciences and mechanical engineering. Gotta lotta of hell over the years for dismissing the stuff, but once I settled down and focused, it came with ease," Duo spoke. There was a nostalgic look in his eye. He started to chuckle. "I gave Professor G hell, but the old man certainly new his stuff."

Biscuit's brows scrunched and his eyes looked to be far away as his mind seemed to race, thinking of Duo's reply. "Applied sciences and mechanical engineering? A background like that tells me of education," Biscuit deduced. "Not many around here are afforded that kind of knowledge in the sciences and mathematics. You would most likely have lived pretty well off. Or have a high social standing to receive your kind of education."

"Well, I can only speak for myself, but I had formal education. My father..." – speaking of his father Quatre paused, feeling as if doused by cold water. Feelings for his father's death, tumultuous and unresolved feelings, always cut him to pieces. - "My father, he hired plenty of tutors. I also had some great, venerable mentors. A group called the Maganac Corps and Instructor H," he managed to say.

"Who knew that?" Duo said sarcastically, earning a smile from Quatre. "They tried to get me into school but when ya too poor for that and other stuff happening, well, you kinda learn from experience. Teach yourself a few things here and there for survival, ya know. However, Professor G was a piece of work. I couldn't get passed the man if I wanted to. He was always one step ahead, and I paid the price for every disobedient action, like studying till my head felt like it was gonna explode! Damn, bastard."

Duo shook his head at the memories. He brought his eyes down on the hatch. "How about you, Trowa? Did those old men overload your brain, too? Did they make you sleep-talk calculations and theories, too?"

"I had a similar background to yours, Duo, without the insubordination. Everything came with ease."

Duo snorted which turned into a chuckle. "Figures."

Biscuit nodded his head in understanding. While Quatre wasn't shy about his education, he knew at least between he and Wufei, they had a good education and structured background. He was sure of that; Wufei wasn't as rough around the edges as Duo and Trowa. Heero was a strange case. He'd always given off the vibe of being a loner without a home, more so than Trowa, like a wild wolf living in solitude. Heero rarely reminisced about the past, and if he did it was in relation to the mission. He was more methodological and precise and brutal. Very brutal.

Biscuit turned to Quatre. He frowned for a moment then brightened. "Winner -? The name sounds familiar. Where have I heard it?"

Duo laughed. "Even on Mars your wealth precedes you Quatre."

Quatre looked abashed at Duo's comment. He could feel his cheeks heat up and he turned away for a briefly. The Winners had a long history in outer space, arriving from Earth and funding the developments of Lagrange Four's first space habitats. From there space became a thriving industry for the family for mining asteroids and refining and shipping metals and minerals to all Lagrange regions. By AC 195, the Winners had become a conglomerate and actively sought to better space and its development. Quatre was given more luxuries than most, but he decided to go against his father's wishes and become a revolutionary for the Barton Foundation, throwing away his affluence for the hard life of a soldier. His father was not too proud of his decision, however, from Irea, one of his sisters, he knew all 32 sisters were rooting for him.

"Oh! Now, I know!" Biscuit declared, his beady brown eyes shining like a light bulb. "The Winner Conglomerate, or the Winner Industry, a known constructor of colonies and mining, sometimes in textile manufacturing, are a thriving business in the Earth's Inner Sphere. They're pretty well recognized by the African Union for their perseverance in human rights and worker reforms, though Gjallarhorn's been challenging that lately."

Biscuit grimaced, nervous and anxious. "It's not looking too good. From news reports, they were said to be sponsoring government uprisings and strikes against Gjallarhorn, promoting violence and rebellion, including assassination attempts on African Union and Gjallarhorn top officials."

"My father or my sisters would never do something like that!" Quatre exclaimed. He could not believe what he was hearing. The Winner family promoting state violence? It was ludicrous and false. They were pacifists!

"So you are related to the Winners," Biscuit said, giving Quatre a sad look. "I did not mean to assume something like that. We know that Gjallarhorn's been framing the Winners; anyone who hasn't been swept by false narratives by government controlled media knows this. But Gjallarhorn is very convincing."

Quatre was about to respond but paused, contemplating Biscuit's words. What Biscuit said seemed out of place. When he had left Lagrange Four, he had set into motion colony reconstruction and improvements. The ESUN was supporting this endeavor to bring joint cooperation with space and Earth. But to Biscuit's point, it would seem this new enterprise had been in motion for years instead of months. How was this possible?

And this African Union and Gjallarhorn were conspiring against the Winner family? He couldn't make heads out of the two. He looked at Duo who also wore similar expression of confusion. Quatre could only conclude that they needed information fast. He had a feeling something in the events or time wasn't right. It was like new governments had come and swept in after their travel to Mars.

"So Biscuit, what brings ya down here?" Duo moved the conversation but his eyes were still unsettled from Biscuits explanation of the world.

"I'm reviewing the work of the Third Group, to see how operational the mobile workers and weapon systems are. Mr. Nadi's group usually does this - I believe Yagami's in charge - but were down on men. We need to make sure they're fully operational and everything's optimal. We can't be caught off-guard if Gjallarhorn attacks again."

"Gjallarhorn?" Quatre said strangely. The Nordic word rolled off his tongue like oil on water; it didn't sink. He knew the Norse mythology of the mythical horn and its significance, but it was shallow knowledge. Quatre only knew that the horn came for the Poetic Edda, a millennia old tome.

A serious look struck the amiable teen. He nodded gravely. "Yes, Gjallarhorn, Earth's peacekeeping force has targeted us. We've been -"

"Peacekeeping? Who in the hell brings eight mobile suits and tens of mobile workers to demolish a single base? For peace, right?" scoffed Duo, giving a critical eye to Biscuit.

Biscuit grimaced once more. "Gjallarhorn isn't a normal organization, they're Earth's military police and their reach is endless. We're a colony that fuels Earth's prosperity. We've lately been given enough autonomy but some of Mars's elites have thrown their weight with Gjallarhorn."

"They must want something or someone gone." Trowa popped his head up from the hatch. His green eyes were narrowed and trained on Biscuit. Biscuit remained tightlipped.

"This was an overwhelming response uncalled for to suppress a base your size. What are they after?" Trowa pressed.

Quatre could see by Biscuit's ambivalence, he was struggling not to tell them. "That is… that is… something I'm not at liberty to tell."

"It is okay, Biscuit. You can tell them," Orga's voice chimed in. She was dressed in the same attire except her red scarf adorned her neck. She had a small smile on her face as she surveyed the busy workers. Her cut lip was still defiantly red.

Biscuit gaped at Orga as if she had two heads. "You cannot be serious, Orga! The First Corps and Maruba said -?"

"They don't need to know about this," Orga waved off nonchalantly, patting boy on his shoulder. "They've more than made up for the help. I've been watching. Thank you guys for the much needed help."

"No problem, babe, you can count on me anytime," Duo proclaimed, righting himself up. Quatre couldn't help but chuckle from behind his hand.

"Babe?" Orga gave a pointed stare at Duo. Duo smiled, slouching a bit against the mobile worker. "The name's Orga, keep that on your lips, Duo, no other name."

"Sure thing," Duo said, winking.

Orga snorted, and cocked her head to side, giving Duo a sly look, and then turning to Trowa. "To answer your question, we're guarding a very important person. Her name is…."

* * *

Kudelia Aina Bernstein watched the CGS crew repair their damaged base from behind a glass window inside a storage room with a heavy and suffering heart that nearly brought her to tears. She wanted to cry, to weep for the children and adults (more so the children) that had died because of her, but the tears wouldn't come, just unimaginable dread and sorrow burrowed into heart, making it heavy and burdensome. Filled with these sorrowful thoughts, her heart sank to her stomach where it agonizingly churned her emotions into waves of depression so visceral it was if she was shot in the heart. The pain, the torment, her gnawing guilt, her gnawing guilt, racked her being and attacked her relentlessly. She soon sank on a lone, green, shoddy couch in the room, her feet collapsing from under her, the guilt had become unbearably too much.

Biscuit Griffon, a staff officer of Third Group, had put her there for her safety, to shelter her from any further assaults from Gjallarhorn's military. Kudelia had tried to be useful during the assault, had tried to help out Mr. Yukinojo and Yamagi but they refused her help; she couldn't blame them really, she had no idea what to do. She had never used mechanical tools in her life, had never been as dirty and as sweaty as the boys hustling to and fro during the battle, and had never even held a screwdriver before. She just wanted to be useful to them and their resolve to the chaos ensuing outside.

What had confounded Kudelia most was Mikazuki Augus's entrance to the battlefield. She had watched Mikazuki enter a large and old mobile suit that had to have been 17 meters. The mobile suit had something regally ancient and sinister about it. It had an aura of power that emanated from its size and armor, but it also came from its unknown and probably bloody history. Its green eyes almost seemed sentient, human. She was afraid of it and yet entranced by its gleaming and proud appearance.

Kudelia had watched Mikazuki connect to the dangerous and self-destructive Alaya-Vijanna system inside the mobile suit. She had read about the inhumanity of the Alaya Vijanna system, how it was outlawed by the Earth government, but some PMC organizations had deliberately implanted them in children for military use as tools for war. Alaya-Vijanaa was dangerous and made children into slaves for war. She could not believe Mikazuki had undergone the surgery. She knew many had died from its debilitating effects post-surgery where the nanomachines had caused accelerated cell growth resulting in infection and loss of bodily functions. How could he put his body through so much suffering? Was his life not important?

Mikazuki had reasoned it was for his comrades, and his response had left her speechless. He had put his comrades, his friends, _her_ , above his own life. Never had she seen such bravery and altruism from one as young as he. His resolve was comparatively greater than hers, his confidence tremendous, where in return she felt like a child to an adult, a naïve child that had never learned to leave her parents' bubble of safety. Kudelia had convinced herself she was free from her parents, never noticing until today they still had a leash fastened around her waist, in case she strayed too far.

She never thought Gjallarhorn would be so ruthless in their conquest for her, to deliberately eradicate everyone on the base to attain or kill her. Gjallarhorn did all this damage because of her and what she stood for as the unofficial leader of the Martian independent movement. Gjallarhorn wanted her and as a result, they killed so many children. Their bodies, frozen in time and forever young, were the stepping stones to equality and independence for Mars. She wanted to vomit from that notion.

"All of them dead. All those children gone… because of me. Because of me." Kudelia had watched the weeping children put their comrades' lifeless and bloodied bodies in black body bags and load them on trucks to take them to their final resting place. She saw them hug each other, scream at each other, and mourn in silence over their friends. She wanted to comfort them, to hug their tears away, to shield them from their pain, but trembled at the notion of interfering in their pain when she was the one behind it. She despised herself, her uselessness and wavering heart.

She put her head in her hands and moaned, "If only I wasn't so useless. If only I…" the sliding doors to the facility interrupted her bemoaning and she looked up. There standing in the door was an exhausted Fumitan Admoss, her personal maid.

"Fumitan!" Kudelia exclaimed, relief flowing through her and pushing her depressive thoughts to the background. She immediately stood up. Kudelia hadn't seen Fumitan since the start of the battle. She had feared that something dreadful had befallen the older woman whom she considered an older sister.

"Young Miss," spoke a composed Fumitan. "There you are. I was told you'd be in here." Fumitan's words were formal and straightforward, but from years of knowing her Kudelia could sense the concern in her words, which made her feel lighter than the dread that was previously anchoring her down.

Gazing upon Fumitan's bespectacled face, Kudelia noted how tired she looked, and there was something else, something she could not discern in Fumitan's eyes that made Kudelia slightly frown. Her normally immaculate appearance was in disarray, her clothes ruffled and soiled, and she was clutching her right arm. She wore a deep blue Victorian-styled bustle with a white buttoned down front where the drapery was tucked inside an odd choice of brown knee-length boots. Her trademark stoicism and demeanor was offset by her the tiredness and bags under her eyes. Her black hair that was usually held in a formal bun had random stray hairs sticking out; some of them fell loosely into her face.

"Where were you? I was worried."

Fumitan gripped her right arm tighter as her face scrunched minutely. She noticed where Kudelia's gaze was focused and she shook her head. Kudelia was about to rush to her when Fumitan spoke, stopping her in her place.

"Do not worry. It is just a scratch. But rather than that, I am sorry. I was ordered to contact Mr. Bernstein first in an emergency."

Kudelia opened her mouth, then, stopped, fumbling for the words that were at the tip of her tongue. Relief and thankfulness flooded her, making her heart flutter in gratefulness. Her father really cared about her safety, really cared about her, after all their fights and disagreements.

"What did father say?"

Fumitan looked at her, her expression still tired, still impassive, and Kudelia could not read anything else from her. "He was very worried. He wants you back right away."

Kudelia felt like a knife had ran through her. She could not betray these children, not after so much had happened only minutes ago. She balled her fists. "I cannot do that yet."

Fumitan's eyes widened; confusion came and her eyes asked why.

Kudelia took a deep breath. "The trip to Earth was supposed to be done in secrecy. Only my mother and father were supposed to know where I was. Someone… someone else had to have known. There is no doubt the target of Gjallarhorn's attack was me. And my father, who is usually against my actions… was supportive this time" - Kudelia's good emotions for her father dissolved, revealing something, to her, she had denied all along - "I do not want to think this."

The drop of clarity that brought a ripple of incertitude crept on Kudelia. It haunted her, and to think the ones responsible, whom she only confided to, were her parents – her father – broke her heart. Her father Norman and she were always at odds with each other. Norman wanted nothing more for Kudelia than to continue her studies, silent on the issues of Mars's governance and corruption, the endless poverty and colonialization that spiraled out of control. Norman wanted Kudelia isolated from the rest of Mars's citizenry except those that were in power, those like him.

Her father had given Kudelia everything she desired, but that did not make her happy. It should have been, it was supposed to be, but learning about Mars and her citizens, she wanted them to have the same prosperity as her, to be as equal as her. To think that her father sold her out, she couldn't stomach thinking about it. Her father wasn't that type of person; he could never betray her like this…. But Kudelia was smarter than this, and she knew, at bottom, the ones that she trusted the most, that were supportive of her endeavors, did not truly believe in her. Norman Bernstein was a selfish man, and now Kudelia could see how her step-mother's obliviousness and disassociation with everyone instead of the elites, her condescension for the poor and impoverish, and her privileged background from Mars's aristocracies, attracted her father. They both wanted to lavish in their wealth. Kudelia felt the sudden urge to contact him; she had to know. If her father was the one who told Gjallarhorn then -

"Miss." Kudelia blinked. She returned her gaze back on Fumitan whose observant eyes probably knew what was going on her head. Fumitan always seemed to be in the know somehow, which was why Kudelia treasured her. Fumitan knew her best.

"I understand," Kudelia said at last, "But I cannot return to my father unless I confirm that."

Fumitan's impassive expression lessened, softening her features. Kudelia liked her more when her expression opened up like this; it made her easier to read and understand. It did not feel like a barrier between her and her maid.

"I understand," said Fumitan, "However… there is no point in staying here."

"That is…"

The door behind Fumitan slid open and in walked Mikazuki. His young face, which normally was stoic, seemed uncharacteristically serious. His wild, chin-length, black hair swayed with the briskness of his walk and his deep blue, penetrating eyes swept the room, then, found her form, a question or were it an accusation on his upraised brow. His gaze tore from her and he moved with purpose in the room.

Kudelia stuttered for words. Her heart was beating fast and it threatened to beat even faster the more she stared at the short boy. "Mi-Mikazuki, well… Thank you for protecting me."

Mikazuki didn't seem to hear her as he knelt down by a small metal box. His large hands travelled over the box and he shook it. He opened it up and nodded to himself. He picked up the box and the contents jingled.

"I don't need thanks," replied Mikazuki, offhandedly, as he started walking to the door that led deep inside the base.

"But because of me, so many people…"

Mikazuki froze in place. He turned his head towards her and his blue eyes morphed into glacial storms. "Seriously, cut it out."

Kudelia looked surprised at the harshness in his tone. His tone, so far that she'd known him this morning, had always been leveled, even when he prepared for combat. This new tone cut her bone deep and chilled her blood.

Mikazuki watched her. Time stopped and all Kudelia saw were those cold blue eyes, and she trembled under their intensity. "They all died because of one _mere_ person like you? They gave their lives for _you_? Don't you dare look down on my comrades." - His glare paralyzed Kudelia. - "Those guys… Those strong guys that came to help out, to fight Gjallarhorn, they weren't here for you."

Without another glance, Mikazuki left for the door, leaving a stunned Kudelia and a silent Fumitan. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. The sound of Kudelia heartbeats rose to her ears. She shook. She shook so badly she couldn't ball her hands into fists.

"Fumitan. Fumitan, have I been wrong all this time? I thought I – I thought if I shared in the children's lives, I could be their greatest ally, and we could find better solutions to solving Mars's problems, but I…" - Kudelia looked down, afraid of meeting Fumitan's watchful gaze, afraid of knowing what she would say about her own obliviousness. Fumitan said nothing, but Kudelia didn't need her voice to know how wrong she had been.

"He's right, isn't he Fumitan? I did not know anything. I was just an ignorant young lady who thought she was better than them. But, that is why I want to _know_. I want to know these children even more. But… Those eyes… It was like he could see right through me. Like he was laughing at me."

"Young Miss," Fumitan spoke softly, after a moment of silence. Kudelia raised her eyes to her. "If you want to know more, then step outside. Step outside into their world and see what they see. Hear what they hear. Feel what they feel. Sometimes we need to leave our places of comfort, the spaces we caged ourselves in, to find something new in ourselves that wasn't there before."

Fumitan walked to glass door and opened it. Kudelia looked at her unsurely, and then outside – to the chaos and death and destruction, the world she sought to understand; the world that had spit her back into her comfortable bubble. She slowly let her feet guide her out the door.

A somber, reddish-orange dusk had come upon the sky, the light, in its entirety, lit everything. Nothing escaped from its glow, and it was this glow, in all its hellish glory, bore down on Kudelia after leaving the building. It was like the world had crashed on Kudelia, and she was left, all alone, to make sense of the devastation.

A steady wind blew in and she wrapped her arms around herself, pulling on her long-sleeved, white shirt for warmth. She had changed out of her red dress during the invasion into more appropriate clothes she had packed before she left Chryse Autonomous Region. She wore a long-sleeved white shirt that did not hide her ample bosom, a slouching brown belt that sat loosely on her hips, green cargo pants that ended at her ankles, and black slippers. Her voluminous blond hair was tied in a ponytail.

Kudelia's feet took her between the armored and lined beige mobile workers. The intimidating and cold mobile workers of cold, machines of steel and death, glared down at her. To Kudelia, they seemed defiant in the dusk. They shined golden red, like fire had swept on them – or, in her mind, as if they were still on the battlefield. Her eyes roamed the long barrels of the 30mm machine guns and newly replenished 8-tube missile pods, the armaments pointed toward the sky like soldiers saluting. These were the children's weapons, these were their hands and feet, and these were their bodies and souls.

She got closer to one, putting her hand along its frame. The reddish golden glow did not bring warmth to the steel: it could never bring warmth nor did it have the means to. As her hand slid against the armor, she noticed its veteran injuries – gray metal scrapes scarred the machine, the paint cracked and peeling.

As she went down the mobile workers, she was soon at the slope of the hill. Yawing before her was the battlefield. Although most of Gjallarhorn's and Chryse Guard Security's wreckage had been cleaned up, she could still see the ravaged combatants, their mobile workers their coffins – or what was left them – sticking out of the dirt like broken tombstones. The smoke had gone out on some but they remained visibly clear and completely silent. It was unnerving.

Within the battlefield Gjallarhorn's Grazes lay in ruin, their limbs and body, on all sides of the base, were separated and oil oozed from their bodies, soaking the red soil brown. The scene was gruesome, and to think those children were able to do this was not lost on Kudelia. No, even the ravaged battlefield, filled with debris and large shell casings – so many! – and the soil was rendered with thick and long lacerations, only seemed to make the image all the more terrible. She could see in the distance, mobile workers attached with flatbeds moving destroyed workers and the body parts of the Grazes' to depots for who knows what. She speculated CGS would scavenge the parts or reuse them for something.

She then walked to the damaged defense tower. Glass and debris surrounded the structure. Looking up, Kudelia saw the result of the damage. A large chunk was missing from middle, and the windows at the top, from the shockwave of the artillery strike, had caused the glass to come crashing down. As Kudelia got closer, she nearly tripped over a young boy with shaggy blond hair in the front and dark brown in the back. He had a small bandaged over his cheek. He wore a white tank top tucked inside gray, fatigue-pants that were rolled up at the ankles, and black combat boots. He was crouching on the ground, meticulously picking up glass and debris with black gloves and putting them in a black bag. Next to him was another mobile worker with a flatbed full of large black bags filled with debris and glass.

Kudelia watched the boy. He was smiling to himself as he moved from object to object collecting one thing after another. Kudelia wondered why he was smiling, what was he happy about? What happiness could be found from this destruction? And then Kudelia saw: He wasn't really smiling; it was more of a sad smile, the one where one puts on to hide their pain. He started crying softly but he swiftly shook his head, angrily wiping his tears away with his forearm.

"Stupid Danji," the boy murmured. "Why? Why did you have to go and do that to yourself? I should have been the one to do it instead of you. I should have been… should have been…" The boy stopped abruptly and wiped his eyes again, sighing. He looked out into the hours-old battlefield, sadness displayed on his face, his lips trembling then pulling into a tight frown to hold back the pain.

Kudelia couldn't help herself at this moment, feeling the boy's ache. "Um… I."

The boy, finding he wasn't alone, turned to her swiftly, hazel eyes wide, in shock. "Hello," he stuttered out.

"I – do you need help?" Kudelia asked. She stepped forward insistently; her emotions emboldened her to assist. There had to be something she could do, something her hands could mend. "Is there anything I can do?"

The boy at first did not know what to say but he seemed to have something on his mind. He then shook his head – which made Kudelia frown in dismay – but his expression soon brightened. "No. No, if Mr. Todo or Mr. Sasai saw someone helping me" – his expression turned inward and he frowned – "I'm afraid I'll be punished. It's best for me to do it alone. But thank you, um… Miss –"

"Kudelia."

"—Kudelia. I appreciate it."

The boy returned to his work, however, Kudelia would not let things be. "Are you all right -?"

The boy stopped again, and turned to her. "Oh. I'm Takaki Uno. I…" Takaki paused, seemingly unsure how to respond. "I honestly don't know. I – I'm trying to be strong for the younger kids, they're scared too. I'm in charge of managing the younger ones since they're too young to fight. But, I'm happy to be alive, I guess.

"I lost a good friend, Danji," – Takaki wiped his eyes hastily –"but it could have been a lot worst, I could have been gone – then Fuka wouldn't have anyone else. But I guess I'm happy that we all didn't die."

Takaki looked over her, to something behind her. "It was thanks to those guys and the Third Group."

Kudelia followed Takaki's gaze to the five mobile suits on the hill, to the conquerors of the battle, their bodies lying on their backs, their armor gleaming menacingly and triumphantly. She first saw the mobile suit Mikazuki piloted, it was still on its knees, then she saw four more of them, all looking the same but notably different, like brother suits. One lone figure, wearing a blue tank top tucked into loose white pants with a black sash, sat atop of a machine, a tablet in his hand. He looked to be doing maintenance. As if feeling their stare, he stopped his task and his dark eyes on his cool and calm face, watched them briefly, and then returned to his task.

"Who are they?" Kudelia said. She had never seen those suits before. They were like Mikazuki's mobile suit – intimidating but more artistically designed and awfully garish.

Takaki shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, I don't even know why they came and yet they did. They fought, along with Mr. Mikazuki, and beat back Gjallarhorn. You should have seen them; they were amazing!"

Takaki looked to the ground. "I wish I had that kind of power. I could protect my comrades, you know. No one would have to lose their lives, like Danji."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Takaki," Kudelia said softly, reaching a hand out to comfort the boy, but stopped, remembering, remembering with clarity her own speech to the masses at the Noachis July Assembly at the Noachis University, in 322 PD, her last year in college:

"After the long Calamity War, Mars was divided and governed by the four economic blocs. The four economic blocs, seeking to profit from Mars's untapped resources and minerals, exploited her people. This continued for millennia and still continues, unchecked and uncontrollable, the wealth gap increasing astronomically each year. As a result, poverty spread across Mars. The majority of these victims are children. And even now, many are dying. They are just innocent children. But they are used as disposable tools in our world. They are preyed on and used for nefarious and deadly purposes – war, child sexual slavery, prostitution, and child labor – all crimes against children.

"They are forced into these tragic situations through economic, political, and social factors by Earth's four economic blocs, backed by their military hand Gjallarhorn, as they slowly eat away our economy and resources until we are starved and left in irreversible deprivation. We cannot be silent about this! To be silent, to go with the status quo, is only to doom us in the end. No. We have a voice, and it's the voice that we carry within us, always, and it must not be silent, must not be lolled into complacency and indifference! We must demand an end to this! Independence is our only answer! Autonomy, Martain autonomy must be demanded, and we must govern ourselves to end child poverty. If there is any hope in the darkness, I pray that hope will guide us to a freer future. Hope is…"

Kudelia's hand gently fell and she smiled sadly at Takaki. "Miss Kudelia, where are you –"

Takaki cried out in pain as a baton struck him over his injured cheek. He crashed to the ground. Standing over him, was Mr. Sasai, a man she had briefly met when she had arrived at the base yesterday. He had shown her to Maruba and Mr. Gunnel. Sasai's uncharacteristically ugly face became uglier as he stood over Takaki, scowling. "You useless, space rat – who told you stop? Idiot!" Sasai pushed the rising Takaki down with his foot.

"What are you doing?" cried Kudelia.

Sasai, apparently surprised, either by Kudelia's presence or surprise at being questioned – Kudelia could discern, - relented, but not before glaring at Takaki, who was now spitting out blood on the ground.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, Young Miss. But, you know, space rats have to be disciplined. If their mind goes astray, they start to think that they could slack off. They'll get lazy, and we can't afford to be caught off-guard again."

"Takaki was only talking to me because I wanted to help!"

Mr. Sasai looked at her as if she was ghost. Clearly, he could not comprehend such a kind gesture as he said, "Why in the world would you want to help a space rat?"

Seeing Kudelia's stunned silence, he shook his head angrily. "Whatever. You nobles gotta be nice to the poor folk huh. You gotta feel happy somehow, eh? But you see," – Sasai raised Takaki's head up with his baton, - "These space rats aren't children – they're not even poor folk. They're things – nothing. We pay them pretty well, but in doing so, they gotta obey any order we tell them to. They're a bit more expensive than human debris, but that's cost of finding good working lads willing to fight for money. So if I wanna hit him, I can – he was disobeying his orders. If he wanna leave, he can, but he knows what will happen if he does," Sasai mocked Takaki while patting his injured cheek. He smiled smugly at a fuming Kudelia.

Sasai's smile was like looking at a squirrel as his overly large front teeth displayed when he opened his mouth. Kudelia shook in anger. Not seeing Kudelia's furious and disgusted expression, or simply not choosing to, Sasai continued merrily:

"Space rats have behavior problems, which is why we beat them. Like wild animals, they need to be restrained and beaten to know their place; otherwise they'll misbehave and cause a ruckus. We can't have that. They gotta learn the works of discipline. The world isn't kind – and neither are we, and if you work here, then you gotta follow the rules."

Sasai's expression turned vengeful and he raised his baton up. Kudelia watched horrified as he lowered again to Takaki's wide eyes, the weapon soaring with hated purpose down on the boy. Kudelia reached her hand out to stop to the swing. Kudelia did not care if she was going to get hit in the process; she could not let this abuse continue. However, the baton stopped an inch from Takaki's head.

Kudelia stared hard at the weapon and the hand that had stopped it from its journey. She followed the pale yellow hand to the face of the boy on one of the mobile suits. His dark eyes stood out on his ovular face and they were intense. Compared the muscular CGS children, he was sinewy and his clothes reflected those of an outsider.

"Isn't that excessive, coming from a weakling like yourself?"

"Who the hell are you? Let me go!" Sasai shouted, trying to yank his hand away. The teen's grip tightened on his wrist and then his other hand went to Sasai's wrist and just as Sasai was about to deliver a blow to the boy's head with his free hand, the boy merely exerted some force on Sasai's wrist, forcing him to drop his baton and sink to his knees. Sasai moaned in pain as his hand bent toward his wrist.

"Weaklings like you don't deserve to have power."

"Please—please stop! Please stop! I'm sorry! I'm sorry," Sasai begged and pleaded repeatedly as his wrist went forward, his eyes bulged in pain, and sweat clung to his craven face. The boy's expression did not change; hatred, dislike, sympathy or pity, never made its appearance. The boy watched simply Sasai as the man continued to grovel.

"Fine. Get out of my sight." The boy let go and Sasai shrunk away, scouring across the base, tossing menacing looks at his offender.

The teen turned to Takaki, taking his hand and lifting him up to his feet. "Men like him run when they encounter someone more powerful. They're like barking dogs: they think they have power in their bark and fangs, but they're only a miniscule threat to another bigger dog that doesn't just bark but also bites."

The boy turned to leave. "Hey! Thank you! For what you did! You were very kind!" Kudelia complimented gratefully.

The boy looked at her, and she, again, felt like was staring into Mikazuki's eyes. _They have the same eyes_ , she thought, eyes that had seen so much, eyes so unlike her own. Once again she felt there was an invisible wall between them, and she couldn't find a way to get over it.

The boy's expression soon had look of interest. He hummed to himself thoughtfully, appraising her appearance and, uncomfortably, her actions. "So you're the one they were after."

The boy then snorted. "I don't need thanks." And he turned again. Takaki raised his voice.

"What is your name, Mr.-?"

"Call me Wufei," said the now-named boy. Wufei finally left, heading towards his mobile suit.

There was a moment of silence but then Takaki squealed. "Oh, man! I can't wait to tell Ride and Yamagi about this! Wufei was so cool! I had never seen Mr. Sasai like that! Never!"

He soon blinked. "But I need to finish this cleaning this up first." Takaki turned to Kudelia. "Well – it was nice talking to you Miss Kudelia."

Kudelia said the same and she was off again, thoughts of Takaki's treatment lingering on her mind, and Sasai's words, words she had once advocated against. Seeing the treatment of these Martian children with her own eyes, everything seemed to click for Kudelia.

"This is what I'm advocating for," she realized, the photos she had seen, the words she had read, had only become more visceral when she saw, with her own eyes, the condition of these children. Fumitan was right. Kudelia had to leave her sanctuary in order to see. She felt empowered; she felt terrible; she felt sadness; she felt so many things, but through these emotions she felt the fog of uncertainty leave her: She had no doubt of what she must do, of what she must fight for, and what was hanging in the balance if it all remained as it was: the same.

Then, in the distance, Kudelia heard laughter; girlish laughter. The laughter sounded strange over this morbid battlefield like a clash of two different cultures. It sounded carefree and innocent. She didn't realize there were more girls on the base. Kudelia assumed Orga was the only one, though, in it all, she doubted Orga would chortle like this. Orga seemed more boyish and lacked femininity and softness; her voice was rough like the desert itself.

The sound of laughter grew as Kudelia made her way to the mess hall. At the kitchens she found the sources of laughter.

"This looks like a butt!" A chorus girlish giggles soon followed, echoing into the solemn air of the base. The giggles danced and soared in the air, sweeping Kudelia off her feet and the baggage of the day. She felt lighter and her mood a bit brighter.

"Stop," another voice came, just as young, just as feminine, "That's food. Don't play with it."

Kudelia came upon a three different girls, huddled around a long, rectangular kitchen table. The laughter was coming from two twin girls. One was holding a yellow tomato, and she was staring hard at it as if she could not believe what she was holding. She had brown hair in braided pigtails, shiny green eyes, and a pink shawl draped over beige, button-down dress, which was open at the bottom showing her blue pants and black slippers. Her twin, who was uproariously laughing next to her, had her hair in a ponytail, her dress fully buttoned and her pink shawl, which was also over her shoulders, formed a large bow. She held her stomach as her laughs grew louder.

There was another girl who was a bit taller and moving what seemed to food from the ground to the table. The girl had short curly hair the color of ash that framed her small face and beautiful and large ruby eyes. She wore a light, baby blue jacket over a white shirt and short rusty orange shorts; black stockings crawled up her legs and sank into large, brown, scruffy boots.

"Um… I am sorry to interrupt but I heard talking and I wanted to see…" Kudelia paused, feeling embarrassed and shy as the girls' attention focused on her.

The twin with the single ponytail cocked her head to side, watching Kudelia as she was the most interesting thing she'd seen all day. Her twin turned to the ruby-eyed girl: "Who is she? Is she your friend Atra?"

"Yeah. Do you know her," the twin with the braided ponytails said.

Atra shook her head softly; her dangling curls bounced, and she gave Kudelia an odd look. She was just as perplexed as her friends. "No… I don't think so, Cookie. I don't believe I know her, Cracker."

Kudelia stepped forward and said, "I am sorry. I am Kudelia Aina Bernstein. I heard you talking outside the kitchen and I didn't think there would was any girls around here besides Orga."

"Kudelia," said Atra, her mind making shape of Kudelia and her presence here.

Kudelia laughed slightly as the three girls watched her. She didn't mind being watched but the silence was getting to her. The girls didn't seem upset, on the contrary, they looked confused and excited and curious. Maybe they weren't used to seeing another girl here. "I heard you talking, so…"

Atra eyes brightened in recognition. She nearly dropped her sack but hastily repositioned them. "Oh! The one in the news a lot? You're the girl the reporters can't stop talking about!"

Cookie smiled brightly, ecstatic. "She's a celebrity? I want an autograph!" Her sister, Cracker, echoed the same, both of them raising their hands in unison as if eagerly waiting for a teacher to call on them.

Kudelia smiled embarrassedly. She could feel her cheeks heat up. She still wasn't use to her fame among the civilians on Mars. But seeing their bright faces, she couldn't help but feel all the tension releasing from the day.

* * *

Orga was first to the storage room door. The metal door was closed, but she knew what lied behind it, and who. She stared at the door for a moment, waiting, feeling the air in hallway grow thick with foreboding tension. The tension was oppressive. She pocketed her hands into her jacket pockets and sneered at the door.

"Damn that man."

A chorus of steps caught Orga's attention. They moved across the floor softly. She glanced behind her. She saw Biscuit first, his face determined and grim. Behind Biscuit was Norba Shino (everyone just called him Shino). He was a tall teen, his brown hair short and messy, and he wore an orange tank top under his green jacket, which hung loose over his muscular chest. Usually gregarious, loud, and good-natured, cheer was far from his face, as his face rivalled that of Biscuit's. Beside Shino was Eugene, looking anxious and angry. He shot Orga a concerned look, then his eyes found the door and hardened. Coming in last was the silent and brooding, black-and spiky-haired Akihiro. Out all four of them, Akihiro was the definition of fit. Every muscle on his body was toned and defined and hard like granite. He was a workout enthusiast who trained more than anyone else on the base – well, she inwardly snorted, Mika could rival Akihiro's persistence. Akihiro was usually cold and withdrawn and he rarely if anything said how he felt – unless challenged to a competition, he became another person. His face showed no emotion. He wore the same uniform, however, a red stripe marked his green jacket, indicating his status as human debris, a human slave who had no rights or will, just property to be bought and used. CGS had seven human debris employed. They were treated more viciously than the orphaned employees, because their value amounted to the total space debris: nothing.

Orga eyed them one by one. Everyone met her yellow eyes in a silent agreement. "Let's get this over with."

She knocked on the door. "Captain Orga Itsuka of Third Group, along with her staff officers, is reporting in."

Silence, then, "You may enter."

Orga and company filed into the room. The storage room was semi-dark, and the three lights that hung from the ceiling, could barely ward off the darkness and shadows at the far corners of the room. Inside the room resided most of the First Corps, lurking against the wall, their eyes hostile – some vengeful; some indifferent – but most angry, angry at her anyways. The coward Sasai was there, pissed, looking equally as stupid as his face. He gave Orga an awkward, knowing smile – it was unpleasant, but he seemed to be rubbing his wrist, his mouth grimacing in pain. Todo was on Sasai's left, looking as if he wanted to be some place far away. The man was a coward, too, but in all that he did around the base, he always made feeble attempts to punish them, that is, unless the higher ups were looking over his back. Gunnel was in the middle, his hands on hips, and his fingers tapping impatiently as if he couldn't wait to begin. Gunnel's face said it all: There was an eager malice and retribution in those dark, ugly eyes of his.

 _Let's get this over with_ , Orga thought, as she and her group stood near the door. "Form rank against the wall," Gunnel commanded.

Orga and company took their place against the wall, - Orga, Biscuit, Eugene, Shino, and Akihiro - shoulders back, and chests up, feet shoulder length apart, chins up.

"Now!" Gunnel barked, pacing across the room, his steps measured, and his face accusatory. "Which one of you did it? Which one of you planted the fucking flair that made us a decoy for Gjallarhorn? Who blew our positions?"

No one spoke, and Orga could see that bothered Gunnel the most: He needed a scapegoat, and the fact that he couldn't get an answer made his jaw clench even harder.

Gunnel angrily stomped his foot. "ANSWER ME!"

Seeing no reaction Gunnel focused on Orga. She knew what was coming next. "Captain Orga Itsuka, leader of the Third Group, step forward."

Orga tensed but smoothly fell into place, placing herself in front of her men. The First Corps woke up: entertainment was here to satiate their loss.

Gunnel eyed Orga, his ugly face expressionless. There seemed to be a moment, where Orga thought he wasn't going to do anything. She was wrong.

"Fool."

Gunnel's first punch came like a rocket and met Orga's split lip viciously. She fell from the blow to the ground, her hands catching her fall. "You made a fool of us. You used me – I mean us…"

Orga wiped the blood that ran down her lips. She spat some to her left, but her yellow eyes never left Gunnel's face. Gunnel seemed visibly dismayed that he could not get a rise from her. "You're talking about when the First Corps went for the pincer attack," Orga said coldly. "I heard you were attacked in an unfortunate accident. Why is that our problem?"

Gunnel's dark eyes flashed at Orga's resistance as she stood up, and, another harsh blow came, this time to her nose. The pain came and it was sharp as the skin on her nose broke. Orga staggered back. "Listen to you babble, you pitiful space rat." Gunnel's eyes seemed to scour the others behind Orga. Orga looked back briefly, and her comrades were glowering, some half-shaking in rage. "What's with that look, space rats? Do you want some too?"

Something struck Orga. She would never let _him_ touch them. "Only me… Just me should be fine," she grounded out.

Gunnel looked down at her, and Orga never hated him more than this. "Is that so? Then…" The blows came more roughly and they pounded her body like she was a mere sandbag. Gunnel wanted to break her. They came to her face and to her stomach and Gunnel's hands roughly grabbed her by the lapels, brought her off the floor and threw her to the ground.

Gunnel was breathing hard, his fists still balled, covered in Orga's blood. Sweat and anger, lust and fear, swirled in his dark eyes. "You're lucky the calculations added up correctly. A pity. I wanted to enjoy myself some more." Without looking at her, Gunnel opened the door and left. His silent but gleeful entourage followed suit.

Orga moved slowly to her hands and feet. Something inside her chest moved and raised upward, building inside her mouth. She coughed and spat more blood on the dirty gray floor. She wiped her face with her sleeve. She could hear her comrades footsteps run to her.

"Orga…" Biscuit said quietly, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"Rats! I won't forgive them!" Shino shouted and stomped.

Orga smiled, and her smile widened her split lip; the blood oozed down her chin. Orga wiped the blood away. "That's right. We won't forgive them. Maybe it's perfect."

Orga shakily stood up. "Meet by the mobile workers outside in five. I have an idea." The group nodded and left. Orga went to clean herself the best she could. She soon found them by the mobile workers, the mobile worker shadows dancing in the yellow dusk, morphing into monsterous silhouettes.

"You're all here. Good. It's time for us to lead CGS," Orga stated without preamble.

A stunned silence greeted her statement. Her comrades looked at her as if she was out of her mind. Eugene looked taken aback. "Us? CGS? Orga, you're -!"

Orga turned swiftly to Eugene. "You said it before, Eugene. About taking over this place. I've been thinking about what you said then, 'that we're no more than toys.' Now is our chance. We finally wrest power from them and claim it for ourselves, for our survival."

Eugene nodded unsurely. "I did, but in this sort of situation? We lost many comrades in the Third Group… we don't have the numbers like we did before the battle."

Orga clenched her fists. "Exactly!" - she looked around the group – "Maruba was quite a scum, but the First Corps guys are worse. You know this. They only think of our lives as collateral. And with their brains, business will go south. Then they will take on more dangerous jobs. We'll definitely be killed. Then they'll replace us like tools. We're expendable in their eyes."

Biscuit moved a little, restless, shaking his head, worry in his eyes. "But there are no jobs even if we leave here. Most of us don't have the education or qualifications any business will hire – and we're, to them, nothing but space rats."

Biscuit flicked his eyes over his shoulder, noting the very thing that challenged their situation that made them nothing more than tools, how they protruded outward like a disfigured spinal column: the whiskers. He sighed tiredly.

Eugene watched Orga, his stare was ponderous and thoughtful – but it also had a grave resolution. "So we have no other choices do we Orga? We have nowhere else to go."

"We always have choices, Eugene. It's just about making the right choice." Orga turned to Akihiro, who had remained silent and immovable, sitting atop a mobile worker: "What will you do, Akihiro?"

Akihiro closed his eyes, lost in thought. When he opened them, they were steady. "We're human debris. We're here regardless of our will. I'll obey whoever is in charge. Even if it's them. Or you guys."

Akihiro jumped down from the worker and walked away. Orga smirked, she expected that answer. It wasn't a No or a Yes, but that still left her room to work with. If they could seize power, Akihiro would surely join them. They were comrades, after all, and, more importantly, she valued him and the other Human Debris more than the adults ever would.

Eugene gave Akihiro a smirk and placed his hands on his waist. "If that is so, let's have a strategy meeting. We need to be prepared and cover all our bases. We have to be serious."

"What about Mikazuki?" Biscuit asked. "Did you discuss it with him? Do you think the G-Team would help out?"

Orga blushed. She hadn't really had time to talk with Mikazuki. Too much had happened and she knew Mikazuki would want some alone time. "Oh! I forgot."

"How could you forget?" Biscuit whispered whilst rolling his eyes.

Orga looked to the kneeling Gundam. "If Mika is against this…" she said softly, "Then I'm sorry, but we'll cancel."

Eugene double turned, "What? Are you serious Orga?"

Shino looked flabbergasted, dropping his hands to his sides from behind his head. "Orga? Are you sure? It's Mikazuki we're talking about, right?"

Still staring at the Gundam, Orga hardened her resolve. "That won't happen though. If I'm serious, then Mika will answer that. Quatre, Wufei, Duo, and Trowa, I don't know. I would like to keep them at arms- length for now. This is a CGS matter; no outsiders. I don't think they'll stand with us if it came down to it."

* * *

"Second Lieutenant Ein Dolton, Commander Coral requests your presence. Please report to the nearest terminal immediately for debriefing," said an officer among the dreary noise of the wounded and dying.

The officer saluted and left the medical room. Ein gingerly sat up from his bed and undid his hospital gown. It pooled to the floor. Ein had just gotten mended; he was shirtless, he had his arm in a sling, and a white bandage wrapped around his forehead. He stood up slowly and looked for a top. He needed to be presentable as Coral had a disdain for untidiness, no matter the condition of the soldier.

He found his shirt; the blood was cleaned, and it was pressed. He took his arm out of the sling and used his right hand to place sling on the bed. He pushed the shirt over his head and angled his arm, awkwardly, through the sleeve. He grimaced, feeling the strain of his arm move through the opening but succeeded. He looked around him and felt his anger storm once again at the wounded and dying in the room, the nurses and doctors speeding around the room in urgency like white blurs.

Ein sighed wearily and left the room. He walked down the corridor to the mobile suit bay. He was at Chryse's main Gjallarhorn military base in the Lunae Planum. The bay was a lot emptier without his fellow comrades. Ein paused, temporary paralyzed at the empty slot of where Lt. Crank's Graze had docked to from space. It was just empty, space, a void. It used to hold something of importance but that importance, still lingering, as if felt in the air, was somehow gone. He choked back a sob.

He could cry later. Right now, he had to face his commander. Ein went to the terminal and activated it, using Commander Coral's frequency aboard the Gylfaginning orbital station. Commander Coral's long and enraged face welcomed Ein. Ein swallowed sharply and saluted.

Commander Coral was an older man in his late forties with a long nose with an equally larger forehead that seemed to rival his ambition to succeed. He had an undercut with fading black hair swept to his left. His thin lips were upturned into a deep frown that barely contained his snarling teeth.

"Second Lieutenant Dalton. Report," Commander Coral grounded out. "Explain to me why this mission _failed_!"

Ein stammered for a moment, recalling the effects of the day, his mind retaking him through the battle and Crank's sacrifice. "I-I – It started at…"

Ein explained his position, Lt. Orliss's brashness into the battlefield after the mobile worker division was losing; Orliss's impatience into the battlefield and then the arrival of the new mobile suits. When he reached their appearance, Commander Coral stopped him.

"You mean to tell me Gjallarhorn's Martian elite Mobile Suit Corps was blown the fuck away by Martian trash? Not just Martian trash, a PMC filled with inferior workers and mobile suits! You had one job and one job only! Destroy them – get rid of them! I sent an overwhelming force! Eight Fucking Mobile suits and I return with only one? And fucking ten percent of my mobile workers! Do you know what happens now? How much of a bind we are in? No! You don't! I wanted them gone! I prepared with eight suits just in case this happened! In case of reinforcements! But to be defeated by Martian shits like them – Pathetic! Absolutely pathetic! I told lieutenant Orliss to take this seriously, but what the fuck did he do? He got himself killed. Damn Stenjas and their arrogance! Damn them! This wasn't supposed to happen! This -!"

Ein took this all in, but he needed to speak. "Permission to speak, sir?"

"Speak?" Commander Coral laughed humorlessly, bitterly, and mockingly, in Ein's face. "What in the world do you have to say for yourself, you pathetic half-Martian?"

Anger came, and then Ein quelled it. "I-I want to avenge Lieutenant Orliss and Lt. Crank's deaths. I want to avenge my comrades' deaths. These monsters – these Martian monsters – these space rats killed them in cold blood. Lt. Crank always taught me that the true soul of Gjallarhorn was in its soldiers – we are one family, a single unit to protect the Earth and Earth's interests. I want to avenge them so this shame I feel as being the only survivor would go away."

Commander Conral's face was expressionless, then thoughtful, his brown eyes appraising Ein in a new light. "How interesting. Indeed. How interesting. You, a half-Martian, throwing his fellow brethren under the bus? Interesting. I think I was wrong about you, Ein. What you're thinking of right now, as noble as it is, is a fool's errand. I can't send anymore forces because we have auditing from the Inspection Regulatory Bureau upon us."

"But Kudelia Aina Burnstein –?" Ein interjected.

"—will have to wait," Coral finished. "We can plan from there. At the moment I'm receiving all intelligence and data from the mobile worker divisions and your Graze's battle history, to formulate a counterstrategy to this menace. If we move now, they'll expect it, and I can't have more troops getting killed. You're to stay where you are for the time being. I need you healed for the coming operations. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Kudelia's planning on leaving Mars; we'll be ready for her up in space. I'll see you there," Coral signed off, leaving Ein in a stunned silence.

The difficulties of his Martian blood had been Ein's reality all his life, and it still hurt every time he was seen as less than. But Lt. Crank approved of him, and Coral? Coral saw something in him, Ein had somehow earned his respect. Lt. Crank had been right: fighting for Gjallarhorn was a unifying force.

Ein soon found himself in the mobile locker room where his mouth fell open in shock. There were two officers gathering the personal effects of his fallen comrades and storing them into boxes. Pictures, mementos, cards, miscellaneous, then he saw the officer moved to Crank's locker. He opened the locker and removed his formal uniforms, and a Gjallarhorn medal.

The medal was awarded to those fighting against the pirate rebellion of 319 PD. The pirates had taken over the space lanes to Mars and were raiding Martian and Earthling transports. Gjallarhorn staged a massive operation against them called the Mjolnir Campaign. Many Gjallarhorn soldiers were lost in the subsequent battles. The pirates were obliterated and Gjallarhorn regained dominant control of most of the primary space routes.

"Can I take this?" Ein said, referring to horn. The officer looked at him questioningly. "Lt. Crank was my mentor, it would mean a lot if I could have something of his."

The soldier nodded compassionately, and Ein took it. The officers soon departed leaving Ein alone in quiet locker room gazing at Crank's medal, silent tears streaming down his face.

* * *

The sky was a beautiful dark blue with luminescent stars awakening to night when Orga saw Mika. The boy was dutifully refueling the mobile suit from a gas tanker attached to a mobile worker. He seemed no worse for wear, but looking deeply at him, Orga knew his mind was somewhere else than on his job.

Orga called his named. Letting go of the gas pump Mika's face brightened and a smile eclipsed his face as he turned to Orga. His deep blue eyes searched her face, always reading for something in her expression.

"You got beautiful," Mika laughed, and then returned to refueling the Gundam.

Orga smiled. She guessed her wounds and bruises did make her appearance more pitiable. She could live with that. "I guess."

Orga stopped by the boy and turned her eyes on the kneeling suit. This was the mobile suit Mika was piloting. Orga peered into its inactive green eyes and the eyes seem to light just for a second. Orga blinked, perplexed and quite bothered by the display. She looked into its eyes again seeing nothing of the sort. _It must be a trick of the light or a malfunction_ Orga thought, and put those thoughts aside.

"Don't you want to say goodbye to your comrades that died," Orga said softly, still looking at the mobile suit.

Mikazuki stopped what he was doing and watched Orga. "No, it's alright. You said it a long time ago. 'You can see the dead when you're dead. So to keep living alive, do everything you can.' Barbatos wants that."

Orga chuckled sadly. "Maybe I said something like that."

Orga gaze again fell on the mobile suit. The sinking golden sun that was outlining behind mountain tops shone its last light of day on Barbatos, its golden crest sparkling majestically. Orga was spellbound; she reached her right hand out to capture the golden light. She grabbed nothing but in her hands she felt warmth. An invisible power moved through her.

She smiled at Mika. "Barbatos?"

Mika nodded and smiled knowingly, like he could read the machine's thoughts. He brought his eyes onto Barbatos. "Yeah. It's this things name."

Orga smirked. "Barbatos," Orga tested on her lips. It was a strange name. She could not recall if she ever heard it before.

"What did you think of those Gundam pilots?"

Mikazuki gave Orga a look of confusion. "Gundam?"

Orga nodded, grinning, "That's what the G-Team referred to the Barbatos and their mobile suits."

Mikazuki remained silent, thinking, then nodded to himself. "Strong. Interesting. They knew what they were doing."

Mikazuki frowned and looked pointedly at her. "Are they a threat to you?"

Orga shook her head. "No. I just wanted to know what you thought. They are an interesting bunch."

A peaceful silence intruded in their conversation. To Orga, it felt nice, relaxing, as if all her troubles were somewhere else. Mika returned to fueling the Barbatos. Orga knew the silence could not last for she needed Mika's commitment.

"Hey, Mika. I want you to do something." Orga unbuckled her handgun from her holster and, using her right hand, grabbed the barrel. She extended it to Mika. Before Orga could say anything, Mika seized the gun and began checking the weapon with mechanical efficiency.

Surprised, Orga chuckled. "You accept before hearing it."

Mika responded but his attention was still glued on checking Orga's sidearm. "But it is something you decided, I'll do it."

A sad and grateful smile pulled at Orga's lips. "Listen to you."

Mika looked up and it was this obsequious and childish expression that churned Orga's insides. "What?"

Orga shook her head and turned to the Barbatos. She didn't want Mikazuki to see her face, to see her need, her shame, and her gratitude. The vestiges of sunlight shined on the Barbatos's eyes. They flickered green and then dark as the sun, finally, sank below the horizon.

"Nothing. Thank you."

* * *

Stationary in Mars's low orbit floated the Gylfaginning, Gjallarhorn's Martian orbital station that oversaw all Martian operations. The station was made of large, cylindrical modules that were divided into two sections toward the aft of the craft. The bow was a spherically designed and contained bridge. Large solar panels flanked the sides of the station, capturing sunlight and storing energy. The station housed up to forty mobile suits.

A sudden light appeared in space and grew closer to the orbital station. A small, Gjallarhorn, Biscoe-class vessel flew into view and docked inside the starboard hangar. The ship ramp opened and two men soared out, heading towards the elevators. They entered the elevators quietly and soon landed on the bridge.

Entering through the corridor on a revolving handles, the two men weaved their way forward. The first of the two men was Specialist Major Gaelio Bauduin, a man of superior birth and esteemed privilege. He was the son of Gallus Bauduin, the head of the Bauduin family and one of the Seven Star families ruling Earth's military police, Gjallarhorn.

Gaelio was a bright young man, who, usually, liked to relax more than work. He was very easygoing, talkative, but also impulsive and brash. His good and bad traits often collided when on the field, but he had enough emotional control to rein them in. At the age of 22, Gaelio had made a name for himself in Gjallarhorn, as an auditor for Gjallarhorn's Inspection Regulatory Bureau and his combat feats on the battlefield had distinguished himself from his peers.

Gaelio also prided himself on his appearance, for one's appearance, instilled into him by his father, was just as important as his actions. Just like his spotless record, his uniform was immaculate as his purple and well-groomed hair that he spent endless time perfecting: it was swept to the side where a curled strand came from the top and floated pompously by his left jaw.

Gaelio's uniform was a one button breast opening dancing in the colors of gold, white, black, and blue. He sported a black standing collar with gold pipping the edges that flowed down the breast and ended at the coattail. A double gray belt wrapped around his waist and a rectangular golden buckle framed the middle. The Seven Stars emblem was proudly emblazoned on his left breast in bright gold with a light blue background. Golden shoulder coverings glinted brightly and three golden bars were on his cuffs and white gloves. Gaelio's pants were a light blue with a single black stripe running down into his knee-length boots. Lastly, draped over his left shoulder was a dark blue cape.

Gaelio's purples eyes found the man in front of him, whose cool green orbs were facing forward. The head audit inspector, his best friend, Major Specialist McGillis Fareed, wore a frown on his handsome face as he fiddled obsessively with his dangling bang. McGillis was also dressed in the same uniform but had a light blue cape over his left shoulder. He had short blond hair that was windswept to the side and a perfectly, lonely, dangling bang fell into his eyes.

McGillis was the same age as Gaelio, and was the heir to the House of Fareed, another Seven Stars family. McGillis was the illegitimate son of Izanario Fareed, but that did not detract from his worthiness as Gjallarhorn's rising soldier. On the contrary, no matter if any nobles' besmirched his birth, McGillis remained true to the Iznario family and Gjallarhorn's sworn duty of protect the Earth. He was genius in every sense of the word, and he embodied it proudly.

Gaelio envied McGillis. The man was nearly perfect in all that he did. He had charm and grace that gravitated others to him, but he could also be serious and coldhearted. He never seemed to care about his illegitimacy nor his aristocratic looks. He was a man of merit, which had bought the fealty of the file- in-rank soldiers. It had also bought Gaelio's own, for his goals aligned in the same direction.

Gaelio was McGillis's escort on this mission to Mars. Gaelio was confident McGillis did not need an escort; he was perfectly capable of performing the auditing for Gjallarhorn's Martian Branch by himself. But Gaelio needed a break from the Earth and, - especially Carta Issue and her pestering - he had wanted to assist the cleanup of corruption running rampant among some branches of Gjallarhorn in the Outers Sphere. Gjallarhorn was a large, imperial, military body, and they needed the man power to audit any misuse of power, to, as McGillis would put it, "to scrape the rot of depravity from Gjallarhorn's soul."

"McGillis, how long do you think this will take? Major Conrad has been quiet these last few months. His logistics and financial records have seemed consistent but they don't quite match the files we got from your informant. I smell inconsistency and lies."

McGillis looked back, a humorless smile on his face. "We'll find out soon enough, Gaelio. Lies tend to crumble fast when their foundations are built on fabrication and deceit. A simple" – McGillis's green eyes smiled – "push brings it all down."

As they made their way to the bridge's ingress, Major Conrad stood in front of them in his red uniform designated for chiefs of branches. He had two escorted guards with him. His arms were outstretched and a welcoming grin was plastered on his face. Gaelio raised a delicate purple eyebrow. Conrad's grin was wider than he remembered.

"Thank you for coming all this way, Specialist Majors, Fareed and Bauduin," Coral greeted pleasantly.

Gaelio smiled. "It's been awhile, Major Coral,"— _you've gotten considerably older and uglier than the last time we met. The stress hasn't been too good for you_ , thought Gaelio to himself, noting the Coral's severe wrinkles on his forehead.

Coral nodded. "It is a bit cramped here, but I have prepared a little party. Get a good rest and soothe the fatigue of travel. You can start your inspection when you're well rested."

"Thank you for your hospitality," McGillis said, his eyes quickly glancing around him, and then focusing on Coral.

Coral smiled wider. "If I can be any help, do not hesitate to ask. My men have been waiting for you. We can prepare any necessary data…"

McGilliss raised a hand, cutting the man off midsentence. "Please let us do the inspection at our own discretion. I appreciate the kindness."

Coral chuckled, his cheek twitching. "You are right. You should do as you please. Let me show you around. Is all prepared?"

Coral turned his guard on the left. "Yes sir"

Gaelio moved in closer to McGillis, his eyes wandering onto the bridge where officers were working frantically. "It's all so busy around here," he whispered. "Look how nervous the soldiers are. It clearly says they are trying to hide something."

McGillis simply smiled, but his eyes were cold and calculating, like a wolf finding the scent of his next prey.


End file.
